A Ginger in 221B
by hopelessromanticx333
Summary: Amy comes back to London for a visit where she meets her College friend John Watson, and his new flatmate. Pondlock. T for later chapters and possibly language.
1. Chapter 1

**authors note: okay, so i just wanted to point out that in this AU, rory was just a really good friend of amy's and was never a romantic interest character.**

**i hope you like it and please R&R :).**

"Amy, how would you like to go back to London for a visit?" the Doctor asked her as he tinkered with the buttons on the TARDIS console, sending a shake through the giant time machine.

"Well, yeah, I guess I do miss a few of my friends, but it's not that big of a deal. Why, is there something wrong?" Amy asked, walking over to plop down in a chair. The Doctor looked at her and smiled.

"No, no. Well, I say no. It's not that anything's wrong it's just that not everything is right..." The Doctor pressed a few more buttons and sent the TARDIS rocking again. "I've got a few technical problems to figure out, so it'll probably be a boring few days for you. Plus, I figure a few days in London with your friends would be a good thing for you."

"Doctor, are you sure? I'd hate for you to be bored all alone up here. You'd probably talk your ear off." Amy walked over to the console and stood next to the Doctor while her continued to mess around with the bits and bobs of the TARDIS that's purposes still alluded her.

"No, no. Go ahead, it'll be great fun for you! I'll just drop you off down there and be back in a few days time. I swear." The Doctor looked up at her and smiled, and the TARDIS came to a sudden jolt and a stop. "Welcome back to London."

"Oh, my God, this is great, being out with you guys again. It feels like it's been forever," Amy said over the top of a martini glass to her closest friends.

"What're you talking about, we were only out a few weeks ago," said her short, blonde friend Wendy. "Still, you look quite a bit different. More tan, maybe."

"Oh, right, I went to a tanning bed a few days ago," Amy grasped for explanations that didn't include Space Florida. "Thought it might be good for my fair skin." Her friends laughed.

"So, what brings you to London? Miss the city?" asked another friend, this one brunette and just a bit taller. Her name was Paula.

"Yeah, I needed to do a bit of shopping, and I missed you all." Amy took a sip of her martini and looked around at her friends, who she had been starting to miss. It had been nearly 4 months that she'd been away with the Doctor, traveling through space. She had missed solid English ground underneath her feet.

"We missed you too, Ging, don't worry," Amy's friend Tiffany said. "I'm gonna go get another round, alright?"

"Sure. I've got to go to the bathroom anyway," Amy said, smiling at her friends and stepping down from her tall chair at the small table the five of them were sitting at.

"Amy! Amy!" she heard quietly over the ruckus of the bar. Amy turned toward the familiar male voice and scanned the crowd until she recognized a short, dirty blond man waving his arm in the air and smiling madly. Could it be...?

"John Watson? Is that you?" Amy yelled as she approached the man sitting alone at the bar.

"Amy! It's so good to see you!" John said back, grabbing her into a hug. "How have you been?"

John and Amy used to be the best of friends back in College and ended up going to the same University, but they had gone their own separate ways since first year.

"I've been great, actually. Life took an unexpected turn, but all for the better! What about you? Last I heard you were shipping out to Afghanistan."

"Yeah, I've only gotten home about 6 months ago or so ago. Got myself a flatmate, though."

"Really? What's that like? I've always wanted a flatmate."

"Well, I'm never bored. He's sort of a hot-shot detective. 'Consulting detective' he calls himself. And I've sort of become his number two."

"Really? How exciting! So, what, you two are out there every day saving people, solving murders?"

"Only when we've got a case, which hasn't been in a while. Sherlock gets a bit impatient and quite rude, really, when he hasn't got anything to do."

"John, that's a bit insulting," a low male voice said from behind Amy. She turned around to see a very tall, thin-framed man with curly dark hair and very pale skin standing behind her with a look of displeasure on his face as if just being in a place such as a bar was a waste of his time. When his green eyes flicked over Amy, she could see a glint of something, though, and the side of his mouth curled up slightly. And Amy couldn't help but notice how much she liked looking at him, as if her were something new and exciting. She ripped her eyes away.

"Nothing but the truth," John said underneath his breath so that only he and Amy could hear. Amy held in laughter and looked back up at the stranger.

"Amy Pond," John continued, loudly this time. "This is Sherlock Holmes, my flatmate. Sherlock, this is Amy."

Amy looked back up to him and held out her hand. He looked down at it in an almost confused manner and then took her hand briefly in his before taking his hand away again.

"Nice to meet you," Amy said and Sherlock turned back to John without saying a word.

"John, come on. We've got a case. Double homicide on the east side of London. Looks delightful. Are you coming?"

"Um, yeah, sure." John threw a few bills down on the table and grabbed his coat off the back of his chair. "Amy, why don't you give me your mobile and I'll give you a call one time so we can set up a lunch. We can catch up."

"Sure! Yeah, most definitely." Amy interchanged numbers with John, said goodbye and watched as the two men left.


	2. Chapter 2

**authors note: nothing interesting happens in this chapter, really it's more of a lead up to what's coming and some background on what amy and sherlock are thinking about what happened in the previous chapter. more interesting things to come soon.****  
**

The next day was a Tuesday which meant that all of her friends were at work and she had nothing to do. For the first time in months, she actually slept in and once she got up she swam around in the pool at the hotel that the Doctor had given her enough money to stay in for a while. After that, she got bored, and decided to give shopping a go. After all, the Doctor had given her lots of money.

For a while, she just walked in and out of stores, not trying on anything, not seeing anything that was really her style. But eventually, once she got in the mood, nothing could stop her from getting all the mini-skirts and Converse she wanted.

The only problem was that she had two very small things nagging at the back of her mind. First was the Doctor. She wondered where he could possibly be, and what was going on with that TARDIS. Or maybe he had just given her the boot so he could mess around with River... She quickly swatted away the image that came to her mind. But the other thing that was on her mind seemed to bother her a lot more.

It was Sherlock. Ever since she met him last night, she couldn't stop thinking about him. It's not that she was sure she liked him so much it was just that he seemed so different, so new, and she just wanted to get to know him and see what made him so intriguing to her. It bothered her that one encounter could send her reeling like this.

After a few hours of shopping, Amy was finally wiped out and she headed back to her hotel. A Top Gear marathon and a nap later, Amy's mobile rang.

"Hello?" Amy said somewhat groggily, looking at the clock. 18:00.

"Hi, Amy. It's John. Look, we've just solved the double homicide and Sherlock and I were going to go out for a bite. Care to join us last minute?" John said from the other end.

"Sure, that sounds great. Where do you want to meet?" Amy said, going to the bathroom to check her makeup. She grabbed a cute outfit from her many shopping bags as John told her the address of a Chinese restaurant a few blocks from her hotel. She told him she'd meet them there in a few and then hastily changed clothes and reapplied her makeup. Then she was off to see the man she couldn't stop thinking about.

It had been nearly 24 hours since Sherlock had last seen Amy and she continued to perplex him, always on the borders of his mind, never letting go. There was something about her that made him want to sit and stare at her, trying to deduce every little microscopic detail about her. For some reason, at the bar the previous night, he just couldn't get his head on straight enough to see who she really was. She remained a mystery to him.

"Stop it, Sherlock," John said from the seat in the cab next to him, breaking Sherlock out of his reverie.

"Stop what?" Sherlock asked, looking down at his blond flatmate.

"You're thinking. You've got your thinking face on. We've just finished a really good case and you're still thinking." John turned toward him as the cab driver stopped at a light.

"Yes, I'm thinking. It's natural. People think." Sherlock glanced at John and then stared straight ahead, thinking about Amy again.

"No, not this kind of thinking. There's something going on that you're not telling me. What is it?" John was still looking at Sherlock, slightly tiffed but obviously worried.

"Nothing," Sherlock replied. The rest of the ride to the restaurant was nearly silent save the sound of cars rushing past on either side of the cab.


	3. Chapter 3

Amy got out of her cab and walked up to the small Chinese restaurant on the corner of the street, wind whipping at her hair, her thin black jacket not seeming to be enough to fight the chill that bit at her cheeks and bare skin.

It was just getting dark then, and Amy could see the sunset off in the distance to the west and stars beginning to fill the sky to the east. She took a moment to appreciate it all and then walked into the building. Immediately she saw Sherlock's slight frame and the same dark trench coat that he was wearing the night before. Then her eyes caught John's and he smiled at her as she made her way to the corner table where they sat.

"Hello," Amy said, pulling out the chair opposite Sherlock and next to John. As she said this, her vibrant green eyes stayed locked with Sherlock's, which were so ocean blue that you could see the green floating around in them and various specks of brown nearer the iris.

"Hello," John responded, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them. Amy jumped when he spoke, breaking her from the stare the two of them shared. Sherlock's only reaction was the slight twitch of his upper lip.

"Right then. Should we order?" John asked, shooting Sherlock a look and picking up his menu as the waiter walked up to them.

"I'll just have the usual," Sherlock said, mostly to John.

"He'll have the chicken dumplings, I'll take the sesame chicken and...Amy?" John asked, looking at Amy who was furiously scouring the menu in order to find something that sounded remotely good to eat.

"I'll take the dumplings as well," Amy finally replied. They were, after all, her favorite.

The brunette waiter smiled and took their menus before covertly winking at Sherlock and walking away.

"Looks like someone's got an admirer," Amy pointed at, waggling her eyebrows at Sherlock.

"Sorry, what?" Sherlock replied, utterly oblivious having been lost in his own world trying to deduce Amy, still to no avail.

"The waiter," John said, "winked at you. How could you be so smart yet so utterly stupid all at the same time?"

"You know me, John," Sherlock said, laying back in his chair so much so that he looked to be shorter than his two friends. He glanced over at Amy, holding her gaze as he said, "I'm married to my work."

Amy raised one eyebrow at him before turning back to John. "So, how have you been? What's new?"

"Well, I've got a bloody sociopath as a flatmate and I see dead people at least once a week. I've got to tell you, it doesn't seem like a fun life, but it's very, very interesting," John replied, chuckling and looking at Sherlock who flashed a mock-smile and went back to staring at the far wall. "He's no fun. But what about you? How have you been?"

"Like I said, my life took an unexpected turn, but it's all for the better. Honestly, I couldn't imagine my life being any different," Amy said, referring to the Doctor and, with a pang, wondered what he could be doing right then.

"Unexpected turn how?" Sherlock asked, joining the conversation at last.

"Just that I've been gone for a while, and it's been quite an adventure. Seeing different people and places. I'm never bored and I'm always on my toes. It's just such a fun life," Amy said, not trying to be vague, but realizing that she probably came off as a lunatic.

"Well, I'm glad you're enjoying it," John said. "Whatever it is."

"Just a bit of a leisurely adventure, nothing more," Amy covered. "But, what about you, Sherlock? What do you even do?"

"I'm the world's first consulting detective. When the police are in too far over their heads, I'm the one they call. And I never get it wrong," Sherlock said, just as the waitress,whose nametag read Courtney, appeared once more with their food.

"You know," Courtney ventured out to say as she set Sherlock's chicken dumplings in front of him, "they say that brainy is the new sexy and from what I can tell, you're very smart." With that, she smiled and walked away, putting a tad bit too much force behind her hip swing. Sherlock sputtered into his drink and got very, very red.

"Oh, wow, Sherlock, she's really got something for you," Amy said, teasing Sherlock with her eyes, and she saw a tight smile play across his lips. "Did you know that brainy was the new sexy? Is that why you became a detective? To get the girls?"

"Yes, actually, that is exactly the reason why. Because my good looks weren't enough to get me women before the job," Sherlock replied, his smile becoming ever more sincere. John realized that this was the first time that he had ever seen Sherlock try to flirt, if that's what he was even doing.

"Besides," Sherlock continued, "I wouldn't pick her anyway. She's a cat lover, aged 23, still lives with her mother, struggling to make her way through University where she's majoring in...liberal arts. Doesn't exactly sound like my ideal mate." By this time, Sherlock looked bored as if everything he had said would have been something an ordinary person would be able to figure out just by first glance. Of course, John thought, he would default on his deduction in order to impress whoever was close enough to hear what he said. He loved the attention.

"That was... That was amazing. How could you have possibly done that? Do you know her or something?" Amy asked, gaping at Sherlock with a look a wonderment.

"That was nothing," Sherlock said, acting bored, even though hearing her say that he was amazing gave him a sudden feeling of excitement. He figured it was just that it had been so long since anyone had complimented him that he was just happy, nothing more.

"Sherlock's got a habit for showing off," John said and Amy looked at Sherlock and laughed.

"Yes, I can see that," she replied and Sherlock silently chuckled across the table from her.

For the next few hours or so, Sherlock and Amy talked and talked about things that seemed so interesting to them, like how Sherlock didn't know about the solar system (which, coincidentally, is where Amy had spent the past 4 months of her life) and how Amy used to bite her therapists when she was younger. John thought it very odd how Sherlock had only shown bits and pieces of the more lively, social version of himself to John over the past few months that they'd been living together and within the first 24 hours of meeting this new girl, he had already showed so much of himself.

John, of course, tried to join the conversation a few times and would add little jokes that made the two of them laugh, but every time he did, Amy would jump a bit in her chair as if she had forgotten all about John and about everything else. It was good to see Amy again after so long though, he had to admit. Even if they hadn't spent the time catching up on each other.

Around 23:00, Amy started unintentionally yawning even though she wasn't even a bit bored with what Sherlock had to say. In fact, she could have stayed up all night if it hadn't been for her body telling her that it was, indeed, time to go to sleep.

"Was that a yawn?" Sherlock asked, lifting an eyebrow in Amy's direction. Amy shook her head.

"No. Of course it wasn't. I'm not tired at -" Amy tried to say but was abruptly cut off by yet another yawn.

"Maybe it's time to get you home," Sherlock said, throwing John a glance that Amy couldn't quite decipher.

"It was really nice seeing you again, Amy," John said, standing up and embracing Amy into yet another hug. "I'll just go catch a cab."

"I'm sure I'll see you again really soon," Amy said, standing up as John sauntered toward the door. She turned to Sherlock. "Shouldn't you be going with him?"

"And leave you alone on the streets of London at night? I don't think so. You'll probably fall asleep on the cab driver's lap," Sherlock quipped as Amy let out another yawn. She smiled sheepishly.

On the ride home, both Sherlock and Amy were quiet, but for different reasons. Sherlock was trying to figure out just who this girl was and why she wasn't so easy to figure out. Scottish, he knew that. Probably had moved to Leadworth, based on the dialect. But that was all he could get on her. It was like he was staring at a blank sheet of paper. And while Sherlock was trying to figure her out, Amy was slowly falling asleep and eventually nodded off and her head fell right on Sherlock's shoulder.

First, uncomfortable with such outright contact, he was about to wake her up and tell her to get off of him, please. But something about the way she had been trying to stay awake for the past hour kept him from waking her up. She had been in the middle of listening to him talk when her eyes would close, her head would nod forward and she would all of a sudden snap out of it and look as attentive as she had a few seconds before. He felt bad keeping her up for so long and then, when it came down to it, not letting her sleep.

But his turmoil didn't last too long because about 20 seconds after she fell asleep, the cab pulled up in front of Amy's hotel and Sherlock was forced to wake her up anyway. She got out of the car, half-asleep and Sherlock watched her walk into her building without so much as a goodbye.


	4. Chapter 4

Amy woke up the next morning with a feeling of displacement and confusion as to how exactly she got into this unfamiliar bed but then the events of the past 2 days came rushing back in all at once. She was in a hotel in London because the Doctor had problems with the TARDIS. And last night she had talked for hours on end to her friend, Sherlock Holmes.

Oh, God, she thought suddenly, had she fallen asleep on Sherlock? Some vague sleep-deprived part of her memory remembered him waking her up and her head on his shoulder. But past that she couldn't even remember how she had gotten to her room.

"You're awful quiet, Sherlock," the tiny, old Mrs. Hudson observed, bustling around the unmoving Sherlock, who sat with his palms pressed together just below his nose and resting on his lips. This was his usual thinking position and, most of the time, Mrs. Hudson knew not to disturb him when he was sitting like that. She must've been extra-curious that day. "Is it about a girl?"

Sherlock's eyes parted just a tad bit more, because he was honest-to-god shocked that Mrs. Hudson had figured it out. I mean, she was like a mother to him most of the time, though he wouldn't admit it, but how she came up with the right answers he had no idea. Of course, he wasn't going to tell her this...

"No, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock said, sounding slightly exasperated and bored, as usual.

To be honest, it was a girl that Sherlock was thinking about, but not in any romantic way. He was thinking about Amy, of course. Why couldn't he deduce her? What was so different about her from everybody else in the world that was so hard to figure out? It just didn't make sense to him and it was starting to get on his nerves.

Sherlock got up from his arm chair and started pacing back and forth, his hands held behind his back. Should he call her? Ask her to lunch so that he could have more time to figure her out? Or should he wait for her to call him? His mind raced forward, wondering what he should do.

John walked in the door just then, his mobile pressed up against his ear, and groceries in his hand.

"So, dinner today? Yeah,sure that sounds absolutely great. I can't wait...Mmhmm...Okay, bye," John said into the phone. He clicked it off and threw it on the nearby table and started unpacking the groceries and putting them away.

"Who was that?" Sherlock asked, hoping for the answer he wanted. He walked over and started helping unpack the groceries, like he'd never done before.

"Just...a friend. Some girl I met at a bar a few days ago," John said, staring at Sherlock confusedly as he continued to put the food away. "What is up with you? You never unpack groceries, and you never care who I've been talking to."

"Nothing, just trying to be nice and make conversation. Isn't that what you want, John? Normalcy?"

"No, this isn't about you just trying to be nice. When is it ever about that? This is about something else. Amy, perhaps?" Sherlock dropped the can of soup he was holding and it made a loud noise on the floor. He bent down to pick it up, angry at himself for his moment of weakness.

"Right," John continued, "so it is about her. I should've known. I've never seen you talk to anyone, let alone a woman, the way you talked to Amy last night. I think you like her."

"John, I do not 'like' her. I have never 'liked' anyone in the way that you're trying to say."

"So, explain your behavior last night. And, funny enough, you haven't told me everything about her. You've refused to deduce her. Why?"

"No reason. Just wasn't in the mood."

"Wasn't in the mood? That hardly sounds like something you would ever say. What's really the reason?"

"There is no reason, John," Sherlock replied bitterly.

"Oh, my God," John said, finally figuring it out. "Is it possible that the great Sherlock Holmes can't figure out one lowly, insignificant Londoner. What is going on with you?"

"I don't know, John," Sherlock said solemnly. "But something is keeping me so attracted to her - not in that way, John - and I've got no idea what it is. It's so...annoying not knowing anything! Is that how you normal people feel all the time?"

"Well, I guess we're all used to it," John quipped. "So, I'm guessing you want to see this girl again?" It felt so weird setting Sherlock on a date, especially one with a girl who used to be his best friend.

"Yes. I need to know more about her. I need to figure out why I can't read her."

"Call her, then," John said, handing him his phone.

"I prefer to text," Sherlock replied and took the phone from John's hand. Unknowing what to type, he went and sat over in the chair to sit and think.

Dinner with John and his new girlfriend.

Will probably be a bore.

Care to join?

SH

Amy snatched up her phone from her bed the second she heard the familiar ping that meant she had a text. She opened it up and saw a text from Sherlock. Her stomach did an involuntary flip.

I'll be there.

AP

Sherlock got the message as he was searching through John's blog and reading the latest story of their double homicide case. He looked down at his phone and immediately, involuntarily, a small smile floated across his lips. He was going to see her again.


	5. Chapter 5

Sherlock stepped out of the cab that he was sharing with John to face the small, quaint restaurant John had chosen. The sky was dark and cloudy and frigid air whipped around Sherlock's coat, and it made his ears sting. John paid the cab driver and got out of the car to join Sherlock.

"Shall we?" John asked and strolled in to the sandwich shop. Sherlock looked around for a crimson flash of hair but nothing caught his eye. He followed John.

"Hello, John!" A little blonde figure called out to the two men from a booth in the far corner. She waved her hands madly in the air and had a smile that stretched from ear to ear. Sherlock could already tell her age, where she was from, and that she had recently gotten off from work, where she filed papers for a female lawyer.

"No deducing," John said, noticing Sherlock's stare and the cogs working in his brain. The men walked over and sat with John's date, John next to her, and Sherlock across.

"Daisy, this is Sherlock. Sherlock, Daisy," John introduced. Daisy stretched her hand across the table.

"It's really nice to meet you," she said. Sherlock made a grimacing smile and refused to take her hand. He watched as it fell back to her side.

John and Daisy started talking about their mundane lives, and Sherlock's eyes glazed over, too bored with them to feign attention. He barely noticed as a tall, red-haired girl slid into the booth next to him.

"Sorry I'm late," she said in a thick Scottish accent. "Traffic was bad."

"Well, it's good to see you anyhow," John said, and introduced the two women. They shook hands and then John and Daisy continued their conversation.

"Hello again, Sherlock," Amy said, looking at him for the first time since she'd come in. Her eyes looked even more green, and Sherlock couldn't help but to stare her down and take all of her in. Luckily for him, she couldn't help but do the same.

"You're awfully quiet," Amy said in a near-whisper, hoping not to disturb whatever boring conversation John and Daisy were having.

"I'm just bored with the two of them," Sherlock said a bit too loudly. John shot him a look, but Daisy kept going on, oblivious to the insult that was just thrown at her.

"They are really, really boring," Amy agreed, but quietly. The couple across the table was talking about table salt. Had they had nothing else in common?

"I'd much rather be at my flat," Sherlock tossed out, not as a suggestion. But as soon as he had said it, he realized that he'd not only like to be at his flat, but at his flat talking to Amy. She raised her eyebrow at him.

"Sorry, John, but we're not that hungry," Sherlock said. "We're just going to let the two of you be."

Sherlock and Amy stood up and made their way out of the booth. Before leaving, Sherlock said to John and his date, "If you get bored of salt, here's a new topic of conversation for you: pepper. Goodbye, John. Daisy." Sherlock turned around and strutted out of thee restaurant, flashing Amy a wicked smile.

"So, where are we off to, then?" Amy asked as soon as they stepped out into the cold air. She wrapped her arms around herself.

"Somewhere warm. Are you hungry?" Sherlock asked, starting down the sidewalk.

"Am I ever." Amy followed closely to Sherlock and she could feel the heat radiating out from underneath his jacket.

"Good. Because I know just the place."

Ten minutes later, Sherlock and Amy were sitting down at a table in a cafe called Speedy's which was just below Sherlock's flat. He had made a habit of avoiding the place, but in the few times he had been, he did note their delicious coffee and he'd had a good sandwich or two.

"So, what do you do when you don't have a good case?" Amy asked between bites of her turkey sandwich.

"Well, mostly I lay around the apartment, read John's blog, go through John's things. Think a lot. But, then again, I always think a lot. It just gets really boring after a case is solved," Sherlock replied and sipped at his coffee. Amy laughed. "What about you? What do you do for a living?"

"This is just a bit embarrassing." Amy smiled sheepishly up at Sherlock. "I haven't done it in a while, but my primary job is a Kissogram."

Sherlock raised his eyebrow and laughed at Amy. "You're a Kissogram?"

"WAS a Kissogram," Amy corrected between laughs. "Not anymore though. I've been away for awhile, traveling."

"Where have you traveled?" Sherlock asked, intrigued. He tried to figure it out but he couldn't even see a tan line.

"Different places. I went with a friend and, the places we go, it's like...well, it's like time travel. We meet new people and go places that are so different from each other it's hard to imagine they're even in the same universe. It's..." Amy grinned. "It's out of this world."

"So, why'd you come back?"

"I haven't really come back for long. My friend, the Doctor, he's had a few troubles with his engine, so he dropped me off here. He'll probably be coming to pick me up in a few days." Amy seemed excited as she said this, but there was a glint of solemnity in her eyes. "Good thing I stopped by, though, or else I never would've met you. I needed a new friend."

Friend. Sherlock and Amy sat on the word for a while. Of course they were just friends, Amy thought. She didn't really feel romantic toward him, but she was still so magnetized to him. Or was there more to it than that?

And of course, Sherlock felt the same way. Attraction toward Amy but nothing more than that. Nothing more. Friend was a good term for it.

"All finished with dinner, then?" Sherlock asked, breaking out of his trance.

Amy nodded as the waitress cleared their table. "Where are we off to next?"

Sherlock laid some bills on the table and stood up, motioning for Amy to follow him. He exited the cafe and stepped over to the door to 221B. The cloudy sky was still dark but was getting darker by the minute, and Sherlock knew it would be pitch black within the hour.

"Is this your flat?" Amy asked as Sherlock turned the key in the lock. Sherlock turned around and smiled at her as he opened the door.

"Welcome to 221 B Baker Street, Amy," Sherlock said. He turned around and bounded up the stairs.


	6. Chapter 6

Amy strode in carefully, shutting the door behind her. There wasn't much to see on the first floor besides the staircase that Sherlock had just run up. She followed him, slowly, taking in the sight. Once she reached the top of the stairs, she noticed first the wall to the right. It was a black and white pattern but it seemed that someone had drawn a smiley face in yellow spray paint in the middle of it. Beside that, she could see small dents in the wall. She went up and ran her fingers along them until she realized them to be bullet holes. She turned around.

"Did you do this?" she asked of Sherlock, who was fussing around, trying to clean the place up.

"I told you, I get really bored."

Amy laughed and took in the rest of the living area. There was a couch and a few chairs scattered around. On the table to the right was a laptop and mounds of papers. Over in the corner by the window and a bookcase stood a music stand and a small violin was placed on the chair in front of it.

"Do you play?" she asked Sherlock, who had moved on to the kitchen. She strode over and picked up the violin, examining it.

"When I'm thinking, usually," Sherlock said, reentering the room and flopping gracefully into the chair across from Amy.

"Sorry," Amy said, putting down the violin. "Where's your bathroom? Had a bit too much tea."

Sherlock chuckled. "Up the stairs, first door on your right."

Amy smiled gratefully and found her way over to and up the stairs. When she got to the top she wasn't surprised to find a very short hallway with 4 doors, all closed. Forgetting Sherlock's instructions, Amy opened the first door on her left and was surprised to find not a bathroom at all, but a single bed with a small wardrobe in the corner. There were no personal items out around the room save a few notebooks, some scribblings on a paper, and a poster of the periodic table hanging up on the wall. Sherlock's room, Amy thought. She silently shut the door and crossed the hallway to find the bathroom.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Sherlock heard footsteps in the wrong direction and a door opening then closing very silently. He smiled to himself knowing that Amy had accidentally stumbled across his bedroom, and wondered what she would find in there. Scribblings, maybe, but that's it. Not as much chaos in there as down here where he spent most of him time.

Amy scrambled down the stairs when she was done and found Sherlock sitting on the couch, a different place than he had been when she'd left.

"Did you find my room very interesting?" Sherlock asked, a ghost of a smile flitting across his features. Amy flushed a bright red.

"The periodic table is a nice touch," Amy quipped. She went over and sat next to Sherlock bringing her feet up onto the coffee table in front of her as he was doing.

"You know, that's an invasion of privacy," Sherlock said, turning to Amy and smiling at her.

"There's not much that's private in there," Amy smarted back, making Sherlock laugh.

The rest of the night went by so fast but so slow at the same time. Sherlock and Amy stayed up talking about nothing but everything and it seemed like they were the only two people in the place. John came home at 23:00 without Daisy but the two didn't even notice as he brewed some tea and went upstairs to bed. The only thing that bothered Amy was that she couldn't tell him about the Doctor, as much as she wanted to. He was a man of logic and she a woman of the unknown. As much as she tried to ease him into it, starting topics of time travel and the universe, he always shot her down, laughing about how some people thought it could actually be real.

At 2:30, Amy started to get tired, and yawning as she had been the day before. Her lids felt heavy and she could barely hear Sherlock telling her that she should probably get to sleep.

"You can stay here, if you like," Sherlock offered.

"Oh, no, I'd hate to impose," Amy said, yawning again. "I just can't believe that every time we talk I can't stay up as long as I'd like."

"It's really alright. You can take my bed. The couch is really hard."

"If you're absolutely sure," Amy said, too tired to argue with him.

"Absolutely. Now go get some sleep. You know how to get there."

Amy nodded, said thank you and goodnight and then drowsily climbed the stairs until she got back to Sherlock's bed. Unrolling the covers and climbing in, Amy drifted into sleep the second her head touched the pillow.

That night Amy dreamed about Sherlock. She dreamed about him traveling with her and the Doctor, about him solving one of his cases, playing that violin of his and, mostly, about them being together as more than friends.

Sherlock on the other hand was unable to sleep. His mind was racing and he couldn't understand these feelings that he had, like he had just won a prize and he couldn't stop smiling whenever he thought of Amy. It was so unlike him that he could just scream. He stood up and crossed the room to his violin. Quietly, as to not wake John or Amy, he played through nearly all of the music he had kept in his memory until his fingers were numb and the light started pouring through the window. Did he "like" her as John had suggested? That hardly seemed like anything he could ever be capable of. It drove him mad.


	7. Chapter 7

"Good morning," Amy said brightly as she flounced down the stairs into the sitting area. Sherlock was laying down in his chair, hands pressed against his lips in thought.

"Good morning, John," Sherlock said absentmindedly, still lost in deep thought.

"I hardly look like John, do I?" Amy laughed as Sherlock looked up and realized for the first time who was standing in the room with him.

"Sorry, Amy. Habit. How did you sleep?" Sherlock stood up and strolled lazily into the kitchen where Mrs. Hudson had made a bowl of scrambled eggs and some toast.

"Really well, actually," Amy said, smiling at the memories of him running around with her and the Doctor. "Do I smell bacon?"

"Yeah, I guess Mrs. Hudson's gone and made us some breakfast. Probably knows you'd be hungry. She doesn't normally do this. Always going on about how she's not out housekeeper." Sherlock smiled at Amy. "She really is though."

Amy sat down at the table and made herself a small plate of eggs and bacon. She and Sherlock sat silently eating at the table.

"Morning, Sherlock. Amy," John said groggily as he came into the kitchen wearing just his robe and poured himself a coffee and grabbed a piece of bacon. Then he turned around again to Amy and Sherlock who were trying to stifle giggles. "Amy. Hi. Didn't expect to see you this morning. Sherlock, can we talk?"

Sherlock raised his eyebrows and winked at Amy then followed John out of the room.

"Since when do you bring girls back to sleep over, Sherlock?" John whispered, looking a bit tiffed because of his sleepiness. But he was very intrigued, still.

"Come on, John. It's not like we did anything. She was about to fall asleep so I offered to let her stay here. Is there anything wrong with that?" Sherlock whispered back.

"It's very out of character for you, Sherlock. That's all I'm saying."

There was a knock on the door. Sherlock glanced at John who rolled his eyes and went to go see who it was. Sherlock rarely ever answered the door.

"Hello, John. Nice to see you again." Mycroft's voice echoed up the stairs. Great, Sherlock thought sarcastically, his brother was there. Just the person he wanted to see.

"Who's that?" Amy asked when Sherlock came to sit back down in the kitchen. She had finished her breakfast and was fiddling around on her phone.

"Just my brother, Mycroft. This should be a fun visit," Sherlock added sarcastically. There had been a lot of sibling rivalry between the two brothers ever since they were children. And since Sherlock still acted like a child, it had never gone away.

"Hello, Sherlock." Mycroft stepped into the kitchen with a folder in his hand. "And hello...I'm sorry, you are?"

"I'm Amy Pond," she said, holding her hand out to him. He took it.

"It's very nice to meet you. You're one of John's girlfriends, I presume?"

Amy choked back laughter. "No, no. Hardly. Just one of Sherlock's friends. Stopped by for a visit." Sherlock smirked at Mycroft.

"Oh, well that's very...nice." Mycroft looked over at Sherlock with a confused look. But then it was back to business. "Look, Sherlock, I've got a case for you. A very important person to the British government took a swan dive off of the top of a building yesterday. Only, it doesn't look like suicide."

"Can't take it," Sherlock replied simply. "I'm busy."

At this John walked into the room, staring at Sherlock.

"Busy? How could you be busy? We haven't got a case, and you were just complaining yesterday about how bored you were. You're taking this, Sherlock," John said.

"No, I'm not. I've got other plans." Sherlock glanced over at Amy who was watching him raptly.

"Sherlock," Mycroft said. "Come with me. I need to talk to you."

"Why should I?" Sherlock replied stubbornly.

"Just come." Mycroft strode out of the kitchen and waited for Sherlock in the living area.

"What is it now?" Sherlock asked hastily.

"The British government needs you on this case. And you're going to throw away a man's life because of some girl -"

"A girl? You think this is about Amy? You've gone mad, Mycroft." Sherlock turned away but Mycroft caught him by the shoulder.

"Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock. I'd hate to see you become caught up in it."

Sherlock shrugged Mycroft off and walked back into the kitchen.

"Sorry about that. Brotherly advice." Sherlock sat down across from Amy again.

"For some reason I can't help but think it wasn't something like 'go get 'em, tiger'," Amy joked.

"No, it was actually quite the opposite," he said and was repaid with a look of confusion from Amy. "Never mind, it wasn't important."

"Whatever you say," Amy said laughingly. "So, are you taking the case or not?"

"I'll take it, but not for a couple of days. I love to see Mycroft squirm."

"What if I asked you to take it? I want to see you work a case. You talk about them enough."

"I'm not sure if you'd like to watch me work. I apparently bore John enough that he leaves, though I've never actually paid attention when he does."

Amy laughed. "I don't care. Just take the case. I'm sort of interested anyway."

Sherlock looked at Amy carefully. He was planning on taking the case anyway, but now that she wanted him to, he may as well. Anyway, she would be gone soon and it was quite impressive when he thought...

"Mycroft!"


	8. Chapter 8

**authors note: really, really short chapter. nothing much happens but sort of a precursor to a really exciting chapter. enjoy :)**

In the next few hours, Sherlock had gathered most of the information that he needed to solve the case at hand.

Evan Rogers, the deceased, was a spy for the British government and police. He would pose as a drug dealer or user and then find out the location of drug mills, meth labs, crack houses, and more in or around the London area. Within the past few months, he had been seen only a few times and looked skinnier and more tired than usual. Only 2 days ago, he had taken a jump off of an inconspicuous building in central London. There was hardly any more past that.

"So, he'd become addicted to drugs before he'd died," Sherlock said, sitting in an armchair back at 221B.

"He had?" Amy asked, sitting on the couch and putting her feet up, a cup of tea in her hands.

"Obviously."

Sherlock was quiet after his comment and sat in his chair, eyes glazed over and mind reeling. Occasionally, he would say things like "but if he didn't jump..." or "of course," but then would go back to silence. Amy sat in silence, occasionally taking out her phone to text her friend Rory or play a game of solitaire. Eventually, she fell asleep on the couch, too bored and too tired to watch Sherlock sit blankly any longer.

6 hours later, Amy woke to a grumbling stomach and the sound of Sherlock yelling.

"Hypertext mark-up language, obviously!" Sherlock screamed loudly, pointing at the television. His legs were tucked up to his chin and he was staring at the TV. "If you're so intelligent, how did you not get that right?"

"I guess not everyone is as smart as you," John mumbled from the chair behind Sherlock. He was busy typing up his latest blog post, and hardly paying attention to Sherlock or the TV. And Sherlock was too engrossed into the game show to have heard John.

Amy sat up on the couch, squinting and scratching her head. She smoothed down her hair, hoping that she didn't look too ridiculous. She felt a pang in her stomach followed by a small growl that she tried to play off.

"Oh, Amy. You're up," Sherlock said, turning quickly to Amy, smiling, and then moving his eyes back to the show.

"Did I miss it? Did you finish the case?" Amy asked, lifting her arms in the air and stretching.

"Yes. It was the head policeman, obviously."

Amy stared at him, waiting for an explanation. When she figured he wasn't going to elaborate, she asked him. "Obviously?"

"Yes. He noticed that Rogers was addicted to the drugs that he'd so adamantly opposed to only months ago. When he confronted him about it, and Rogers wouldn't promise to get clean, he pushed him off the building. He felt that he was too corrupt to carry on advising the police force. Elementary, my dear Amy."

"Oh, right. Of course." Amy's stomach growled again. "Can we go get some food? I'm famished."

"Sure," Sherlock replied, turning off the television and plunging the room into near-darkness. He flipped on a lamp beside him.

"Sherlock, why don't you two try the burger joint 3 blocks down? It's brilliant," John piped up, turning his chair around.

"Will you be joining us, then, John?" Sherlock asked, standing up and crossing the room. He threw his trench coat over his shoulders and tied his scarf around his neck.

"No, I've already eaten." He turned back to the computer screen and began typing slowly once again.

"It's just the two of us, then," Amy said, grabbing her jacket from the couch.

"Shall we?" Sherlock said, letting Amy go out into the hallway first and then following closely behind her.


	9. Chapter 9

The air was brisk as Amy and Sherlock stepped out onto Baker Street. Cabs were zooming past and the twilight sky was radiated over the tops of buildings. Down the street, London life was bustling, ever-ongoing. Lights from cars were zooming by, casting shadows and lighting up laughing citizens going to their favorite bars and awed tourists trying to find well-reviewed restaurants.

The pair walked slowly, side by side down the sidewalk toward their destination. They walked in contented silence, Sherlock with his hands in his pockets and Amy with her arms wrapped around herself. Amy looked up often, noticing the stars and wondering where the Doctor could be among them. She let out a low, melancholy sigh and realized that she missed spending time with him and adventuring.

"Everything alright?" Sherlock asked, looking down at a sullen Amy.

"Yeah," she replied, giving him a wistful smile. "Just missing my friend is all. It's funny how you can spend only a small chunk of time with someone but feel like they're such a large part of you."

Sherlock had felt the same way about only one other person in his life: John. He had never had a friend before, but suddenly, when John arrived on his doorstep, it seemed like Sherlock would never be able to go back to the dull, lonely life that he had before. If that was the way Amy felt about her friend, he could sympathize.

"Anyway, I'll be seeing him in only a few days, now." She looked up and gave Sherlock yet another sad smile.

"Is this your Doctor friend? The one you travel with?" Sherlock asked.

"Yeah, that's the one. Known him all my life. But he's only just come back for me."

"Come back how?"

"Well..." Amy started, looking up at Sherlock sheepishly. "No, no. You would think I was absolutely mad."

"I doubt that." Sherlock noticed Amy biting her lip indecisively.

"No. I won't tell you."

"Oh, please. Now that you've brought it up, I can't stand not knowing."

Amy looked up at him. "Fine."

"Good." Sherlock smiled at his win and then listened to Amy's incredulous story.

"When I was 7, I had an imaginary friend."

"Well, that's normal. Most children have imaginary friends," Sherlock interrupted. Amy looked up at him and glared.

"Okay, if you want me to tell you, you've got to shut your face." Sherlock nodded and Amy smiled, leaning toward him and nudging him.

"Right, so I had an imaginary friend. A man who wasn't really a man. He fell out of the sky one night with a big blue box, a time machine, he'd called it. It was small, but much bigger on the inside. And when he left, he promised me he'd take me to see the world. He promised that he'd be back in 5 minutes. But 5 minutes turned into 5 years, and then 10, and finally, 12 years and 4 psychiatrists later, he came back. But he didn't look a day older." Amy looked at her hands. "He saved me, saved the world and, without a word, he left again. 2 years later, I heard the familiar engine outside my door and when I came out to see if it was really him, he took me away. He's taken me on the most wonderful adventures. We travel time and space together and meet the most interesting, and sometimes the most frightening aliens. Up until recently, it had just been me and him, the two best friends traveling the universe together. And that's where I've been for the last 4 months of my life, and 1 day of earth life."

Sherlock was silent as Amy finished up her story. His mind was cluttered full of information, and he tried to make sense of everything she'd just said. Aliens, time travel, an un-aging man. None of it fit together. It wasn't rational. Amy had to be bluffing, waiting for him to believe and then laughing in his face. He couldn't believe it.

"Hello? Are you going to say anything?" Amy asked, looking up at Sherlock again.

"What do you expect me to say? I'm a man of reason and that, that _fiction_ you just told me had no reason in it. You expect me to believe any of that?" Sherlock asked.

"Yeah, I expect you to believe it," Amy replied hotly. She stepped in front of him, cutting him off before he could cross the street in front of them.

Sherlock laughed spitefully in her face. "I'm sorry Amy but I think you've gone and banged your head or something, because there is no way in hell that you really have done all that you say you have."

"Really? Because I have seen things that you can't even dream of. Things that would cause you endless sleepless nights. Monsters that only live in the nightmares of children."

"Amy, there's a reason that I can't dream of the things you've seen. Because they're not real. There's no reason behind anything you've told me. The stories of children, not someone as bright as yourself."

Hot tears streaked down Amy's cheeks. "You call yourself a genius, yet you can't even accept that, somewhere out there," she pointed to the sky, "there are other worlds, _infinite_ possibilities."

"Maybe there are, but no one, no one, has the ability to reach it. If they had, don't you think that it'd be pretty hard to keep a secret from the billions of people living here? And what of your precious Doctor? A man who wasn't really a man? So, what, you're telling me that somewhere out there are aliens who look _just like us? _I do think that's awfully convenient, don't you?"

"Right, so now I'm supposed to believe that everything I've come to know in my life, have spent my whole life thinking about, isn't real because you don't believe it?"

"Because it's not real, Amy. It can't be. You have to think."

"I _am _thinking. And I'm the only one thinking right. Don't believe me. I can't tell you what to think, but I'm telling you what I know."

"What you know is _wrong_." Sherlock spit the words at her and then turned to cross the street, leaving her, tear-stained and stricken by his outburst.

Sherlock stepped out a few feet onto the street and, as though she were watching the scene from outside of her body, Amy heard the squeal of tires and bright light illuminate the man who suddenly seemed too far away from her. Sherlock seemed unable to move, nailed to the spot, and, somewhere distantly in Amy's mind, the term "deer in headlights" came to mind.

The truck barreled forward, hurtling toward an unmoving Sherlock.

"Sherlock! No!" Amy screamed, reaching out, as if she could pull him back to her. She knew she had to do something. Almost in slow motion, she ran forward and sprinted toward him, slamming her body into his. They seemed to fly through the air until crashing to the ground. Sherlock felt the air leave his lungs, forced out by the sudden impact. Somewhere very close behind them, Amy heard the truck's horn blare but she felt no impact. It traveled down the street and eventually out of sight. Quickly, it was all over. Amy looked at Sherlock, who she had landed on top of, and saw a look of utter astonishment pass over his face. It was the last thing she saw before everything went black.


	10. Chapter 10

Amy awoke to the loud ringing of her mobile that signified getting a call. Before answering, she looked at the time. It was only 4:00 and she knew only one person that would ever call her that early.

"Doctor?" Amy answered the phone groggily. She looked around and noticed that she was laying on Sherlock's bed and the suitcases and bags of clothes from her hotel room were piled up in the corner.

"Hello Amy!" the Doctor nearly yelled from the other end of the call. Amy moved the phone away from her ear quickly so as to not split her eardrum.

"Wow, Doctor. You're a bit too enthusiastic. It's only 4 here." Amy said, squinting at the light radiating from her phone.

"Oh, gosh, is that really early? I'll call you back in a minute," the Doctor whispered. Amy could hear the grin in his voice. "Or, rather, a few hours."

Amy gladly shut off her phone and flipped over, making herself comfortable in the bed again and then drifted off to sleep.

Amy woke again 4 hours later to her phone blaring. It must be the Doctor, Amy thought. She picked up, much less tired this time. Morning light was shining through the window and she could clearly see the periodic table poster on the wall. She smiled.

"Yes?" Amy said into the phone.

"Is this a better time?" the Doctor whispered on the other end.

Amy giggled. "Yes, Doctor, it's fine."

"Good. Can I come pick you up? I've fixed all the engines and the TARDIS sounds beautiful! She's happy, I can tell."

Amy giggled again, realizing how much she missed his ability to amuse her so easily.

"Something funny, Pond?"

"No, nothing. Give me a half hour and I'll be out of here."

She said her goodbyes and hung up the phone. After mustering up the strength, she flung her legs over the side of the bed and was immediately overcome by a spell of dizziness. Fainting can do that to you, she thought.

As Amy got dressed, brushed her teeth and combed her hair, she replayed last night over and over again in her mind. Her confession to Sherlock, their fight, and, finally, the most replayed in her mind, the bus incident. She didn't know whether to be worried about Sherlock or mad at him.

Luckily, when she crept down the stairs, she found him sleeping peacefully on the couch. He looked physically fine, so she decided not to worry about whether or not he was in pain. Still, she wondered about him.

She was losing time quickly before the Doctor came knocking. She found a notepad and a pen among the piles of paper on the table and scrawled a note to Sherlock.

I had to leave.  
I'm so sorry about last night.  
Hope you're okay.  
Chances are, I will never see you again.  
It was nice meeting you, though.  
I told you how good it was to have a new friend.  
Sorry again.

Goodbye.

Amy Pond

She signed it with a flourish and left it on the table where it would probably be lost among the other papers. Maybe one day he would find it.

Amy heard the sound of the TARDIS engines braking and landing outside the window. She looked out to see a conspicuous blue police box sitting on the sidewalk across the street. She knew the Doctor was inside waiting for her.

Before she walked out the door, she strode over to the sleeping Sherlock. Gently, she leaned down and lightly brushed her lips against his cheek.

"Be brilliant," she whispered in his ear. And then she turned around and walked out the door.

Meanwhile, Sherlock had been awake ever since he heard Amy's phone that morning, and had only feigned unconsciousness so that he wouldn't have to get into another tiff with her. He quickly stood up after he heard the front door close. He hurriedly read the note and, unsure of what else to do, ran down the stairs and threw open the front door. A 1950's blue police box that had never been there before sat on the other side of the street. Sherlock could see a girl standing in front of it, the door propped open, her red hair shining from the rays of the morning sun.

"Amy!" he called out to her before she stepped inside. She twisted around and threw a rueful smile at him, but continued to walk into the box. "Amy, wait!" Sherlock yelled, running across the street to catch her. She shut the door and stood outside, holding herself and rubbing her arms with her palms to fend off the cold.

"So this is the blue box, huh?" Sherlock asked, and inwardly groaned at his awkward version of small talk. When he'd come out here, he didn't know what he would say, but he hoped it would have been slightly more intelligent than that.

"This is it," Amy said, looking at him with a blank expression on his face.

"That still doesn't prove -"

"Sherlock, did you come out her to fight with me some more? Because I really don't need anymore of that." Amy crossed her arms over her chest and looked at Sherlock with an annoyed stare.

"No. Not at all. Just. I came out her to say I'm sorry. And thank you." Sherlock stared at his toes, sure that that hadn't come out as he'd planned it to.

"For?" Amy asked, still looking straight at Sherlock, who lifted his head.

"You...you saved my life. Without you, I wouldn't be standing her right now. And just...thank you." Sherlock turned to go but Amy caught his arm. When he turned around, she had the same warm smile that she always wore.

"Goodbye, Sherlock." Amy stood on her tiptoes until she was only a couple inches shorter than him. She placed her lips gently against his and then turned around, open the doors to the police box and shut them just as quickly.

Sherlock was too shocked to move. He stared at the door that Amy had just entered and longed to open it and see where she was going, and why she thought that she could fit in the small box.

Suddenly, wind whipped around the box in front of him and a noise like rushing water and grinding breaks filled the air. In front of him, as if by magic, the blue box started to fade in an out of focus. One second it was solid in front of him and the next he could see straight through it. And then it was gone. Just like that.

"When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true." Sherlock stared at the spot on the sidewalk where a large blue police box had once been sitting and now sat empty. A single tear streamed down his face. "She was telling me the truth."

* * *

**UPDATE: okay so i sort of just realized that it really seems like this is then end of the fic, but trust me, i have way more ahead for you! haven't been able to update because i forgot my laptop. may update tomorrow, but i have limited time because i have to pack. and then ill be gone for the weekend! sorry if you don't see an update from me till monday! but this isn't the end!**


	11. Chapter 11

"Anything?" John asked as he walked in the door and noticed Sherlock on the computer. He was, of course, looking for sightings of a blue police telephone box sighted in London. In the past months, it had become routine for John to walk in on Sherlock scouring web page after web page hoping for a clue. Although John could tell how miserable Sherlock was feeling, he also noticed that Sherlock tried to keep his feelings at bay. He continued working on cases, conducting experiments, and being and all-around pain in the ass. But underneath it all was a feeling of loss that he couldn't hide all the time. His flatmate was sure that he was the only one who knew remotely what was going on behind that thick skin of Sherlock's.

"Nothing today," Sherlock replied, backing up from the computer and looking up at John who had the mail in his hand. He sorted out his own and then placed Sherlock's on the table.

It had been 7 months since Amy's departure, and, with each passing day, Sherlock felt further away from ever finding her again. The logical part of Sherlock knew that Amy had chosen to leave, and if she wanted to come back, she could. But she wasn't, and rational Sherlock knew that. But the Sherlock that had run out to thank Amy, to say goodbye to her because he wanted to see her one last time, had hope somewhere deep down that she would one day return to him. Instead, she was off adventuring with her precious Doctor. He had seen the man that day and could see why Amy would rather be with him than Sherlock.

"Sherlock, you've got to stop torturing yourself like this," John had said when he first started searching the internet and constantly looking out the window, hoping to find some hint of her. "She left and she's not coming back. I'm so sorry, but she's not."

Sherlock had only sat in silence, knowing that John was right but not wanting him to be.

.

"Who was that?" the Doctor had asked Amy when she had come back into the TARDIS, biting her lip with a smile on her face.

"No one," she said, smiling to herself. "Just a friend."

The Doctor looked up at her from fiddling around with the levers on his TARDIS. "Didn't seem like no one. That was a whole lot of affection for just no one."

"Okay, well I guess he is someone. You caught me." Amy stopped leaning on the door and walked up the stairs as the Doctor pulled a final lever, sending them off to God-knows-where.

"And you like this someone?"

"Oh, God, you sound like my aunt!" Amy laughed, leaning on the console next to the Doctor. "Sure, maybe I like him. How's that your business, anyway?"

"Everything's my business, Pond. Haven't you figured that out yet?" Amy laughed again. "So you like this someone - oh can you please just tell me his name so I can stop calling him someone? It sounds so demoralizing."

"Sherlock Holmes. That's his name." Amy felt a smile pass over her lips before she looked up at the Doctor who had a grand smile plastered on his face. Amy laughed at his hilarious grin. "What is it?"

"Amy Pond! You kissed Sherlock Holmes! I mean, I snogged Madame de Pompadour, but you kissed Sherlock Holmes!" The Doctor yelled excitedly, grabbing Amy by the shoulders. "Oh, brilliant! Brilliant Amy Pond and Sherlock Holmes!"

"Yes, Doctor, Sherlock Holmes. I have a feeling you know him?" Amy laughed as the Doctor let go of her.

"Do I know him! The hounds of Baskerville, the Reichenbach fall, the deer stalker, Moriarty! Oh, Amy, he is brilliant!" the Doctor continued on excitedly. "Oh, but I can't tell you any of this, can I? You're in his time stream now, and you play a very important role, it seems. Oh, gosh, and they're just such great stories."

"Doctor! You can't just start something and not finish it! What is all this you're going on about Sherlock? I want to know!" Amy said stubbornly as the Doctor turned back to the screen, silent but smiling.

"Sorry, Amy, but I can't. I just can't. It's too dangerous. Wouldn't want you knowing too much, would we? Spoilers, eh?" The Doctor winked at Amy who gave him a stubborn glare but eventually let it go and went to take a well-needed shower.

Now, nearly 8 months later, the Doctor and Amy exited the TARDIS into London 2014.

"Doctor, what are we doing here? It's boring and cold," Amy said, wrapping her arms around her bare arms. She had hoped he would take her somewhere warm, as he'd promised, but the TARDIS had other plans for them.

"We've come here for a reason, Amy. I'm not sure what, but something is up," the Doctor said, pointing his sonic and doing a twirl in the middle of the street. Amy shot him a look. "What? Just doing a scan, alien activity and such."

While the Doctor continued his scans, pointing the screwdriver and then shaking his head at the results, Amy decided to look around. There was no one in the alley that they had landed in, which was normal. But, when Amy left to visit the always-crowded streets, there was something strange. No one was there. Restaurants had their lights still on, cars were left with engines running, but there was no one in sight.

"Doctor!" Amy shouted back down the alley. "There's something wrong!"

"Hold on, Amy," said the Doctor, walking up to her with his eyes and focus on the screwdriver in his hands. "I think something's gone wacky with my sonic. It keeps saying that there are no life forms present."

"No, Doctor. You're screwdriver's not wrong. There isn't anyone here." The Doctor looked up slowly and noticed that Amy and his sonic were both right.

The streets of London were empty.

* * *

**dun dun dun. last update for the week. i'll be out of town with no computer this weekend. that doesn't mean i won't be writing though! should post a few chapters monday. thanks and hope you enjoyed!**


	12. Chapter 12

"This isn't right. This can't be right," the Doctor rattled on, running from door to door, opening them and shouting for any form of life. He picked up unattended briefcases, purses, and mobiles on the ground, searching them for clues. He briskly walked over to Amy and grabbed her by the shoulders, staring in her eyes. "Where are all the people?"

"Why are you asking me? If anything, I have fewer ideas than you, Doctor. Doctor?" she asked. A funny look had come over the Doctor's face. He stared at her as if she had grown an extra pair of eyes in her forehead. "What is it?"

"Are you feeling alright, Amelia?" he asked, pulling his sonic from his pocket and scanning, worried.

"Doctor, of course I'm alright. What's going on? Why are you looking at me like that?"

As she finished her question, Amy felt a tingling sensation in her arms. She looked down to see a blue light radiating from the place where her hand had been. It was slowly inching its way up her arm.

"Doctor! What's wrong? What's happening to me?"

"I don't know! I don't know. But whatever it is, I'm not going to let it take you."

As the Doctor pointed his sonic toward her again, Amy noticed the same blue light appear on the Doctor's head, eating toward his eyes. And again it erupted on his chest, then his arms.

"Oh my God, Doctor! Look!" She pointed at him and he looked down just in time to see his hand disappear.

"Okay, Pond. It seems like wherever you're going, I'm going, too." His face looked solemn and, with his still existent hand, he shoved his sonic in his pocket just before his hand was engulfed in blue light.

"See you on the other side, Doctor," she said, scooping what was left of him into a hug. She felt an unbearably sharp pain in her head and, screaming, closed her eyes. She could feel the Doctor slipping away from her.

But, suddenly, all of it had ended and she felt him in her arms again, well and whole. The pain in her head subsided, leaving her with a dull headache. She opened her eyes again.

The streets of London had dropped away from them, instead leaving a small, dark, cold metal room.

"Oi, Doctor, where are we?" Amy asked as the Doctor broke their embrace. She walked around, inspecting their surroundings. There was a large metal door in one of the walls, though no handled were visible.

"We're wherever the rest of London is," the Doctor said, taking his sonic out of his pocket and buzzing it around the room.

"And where's that?" she asked, whirling around to look at him.

Just then, the metal door slid open with a clanging. Amy had never seen the man-looking creature that appeared beyond the metal doorway. His whole body was made of metal. Where most people had mouths, small blue sensors were. His eyes were cut into the head so that it looked like he was crying. Sad as it looked, he was still very, very frightening.

"Cybermen, of course," the Doctor said, bringing his palm up to his forehead in exasperation, "Of course it's you!"

"Doctor," the Cyberman said mechanically. Its voice was cold, metal, and emotionless.

"Doctor, how does he know who you are?" Amy said, ripping her eyes away from the metal man to look at her Doctor.

"Old enemies," he said simply.

He pointed his sonic screwdriver in the air. Immediately, the door shut on the Cyberman, but the Doctor still kept his hand pointed upward. Outside, Amy could hear the shouts of "Delete!" from the monster.

"What're you doing?" Amy asked him, feeling the sharp pain in her forehead again. She gasped.

"Sorry, Amy. Cutting off the teleportation link to us." The Doctor started to disappear just as he had before, blue light sprouting from his limbs "I'm getting us out of here."

Amy watched as the room around her melted away like wax on a candle, and was replaced instead by the familiar streets of London.

"Doctor, what _was _that thing? A Cyberman?" Amy asked, walking over to sit on the street curb. The Doctor followed her.

"Cybermen, yes. Their sole purpose is to 'upgrade,' as they say, the entire human population. Cybermen have no emotion and are programmed to think that life, or existence, rather, is better that way. If you're not compatible, you're 'deleted.' I haven't seen them in a while but, trust me, they will stop at nothing."

"So, they've taken all of London to upgrade them?" Amy asked. The Doctor stood up quickly.

"Yes, but why? Why now? Why London? It's not Christmas, is it?" the Doctor walked away and then came back, opening his mouth as if her wanted to say something, but then turned around and did the same thing. After the fourth time he did this, Amy interrupted.

"Okay, Doctor," she laughed. "How about you go and work this out? I need to take a walk."

"Don't go too far, don't be too long, and don't do anything too stupid!" he called after her. Amy turned around.

"Oi! I'm never stupid!"

The Doctor and Amy smiled at each other before going their separate ways.

Amy walked down the block, unnerved but enjoying the eerie silence. She went into shops, looking around at their various items and picked up dropped possessions on the street, left hopelessly as their owners were picked up involuntarily.

When travelling with the Doctor, it was always hard to wrap your head around things: the monsters, the Doctor's impossible-to-understand technical terms, time, and, mostly, the fate of those that they Doctor was trying to save. How scared they must by. However, when it came to time, there was a way to get a grip on it.

Amy kept walking until, finally, she came to a newspaper stand. She quickly grabbed one and her eyes went straight to the date: 20 January 2014. That was nearly 2 years since Amy had left.

She looked back at the Doctor who was still busy talking to himself, trying to figure out the mystery. With a pang, she thought of Sherlock. How he had talked when no one was listening. But no, she thought. She couldn't think about him. She had left _him_, remember? He probably didn't even think about her anymore.

Amy cleared away her thought. She sat down on the curb again and looked at the headline of the paper.

"Consulting Detective," it read. The rest continued on the other half of the paper. Amy remembered how Sherlock had described what he did. _I'm the world's first consulting detective. When the police are in too far over their heads, I'm the one they call. _With hesitation, Amy flipped the paper over and a gasp caught in her throat as she read the last word in the headline. "Dead."


	13. Chapter 13

"Sherlock," Amy whispered, brushing her fingers along the pictures of Sherlock, blown up to fit on the black and white page. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

"Doctor." She yelled but only a tight, choked whisper came out of her mouth. She tried again, and this time, her voice came out clear, but wavering, cutting across the silence that pressed down against her. "Doctor!"

Within a minute, he was at her side. "Amelia," he said. He only ever used her full name when he was worried about her and, from the tone of her voice, he could tell that he should be worried. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"It's…It's Sherlock. He's…Doctor, he's –" Amy couldn't get the word out. She couldn't think of him as…well, she just couldn't.

"Amelia," the Doctor said again, grabbing her into a tight hug. "Oh, Amelia, I'm so, so sorry."

"How could he be…gone? I just saw him 8 months – 2 years ago. He was so alive. How did it happen?"

"Oh, Amelia. I can't answer that. You know I can't. You're a part of h is life now. This future you're seeing, you should have never seen it. It's, for lack of a more appropriate term, spoilers."

Amy pulled away from the Doctor. "W can save him," Amy whispered, a glimmer of hope shining in her eyes.

"No, Amy. This is a fixed point. This always has to happen. I'm so sorry,but we can't save him."

"Then I want to see him. Go back to my time. You can't keep me from that, Doctor. It's where I'm supposed to be. And I have to see him."

"You're right. I can't stop you, but I can ask you one thing. You can't tell him anything. Just him knowing, trying to change what happens, could change something, alter the course of history."

"I swear, Doctor. As long as I can see him, I won't say anything," Amy said through tears. Even think about her future and losing him, never seeing him again, brought on a new wave of sadness. She choked back sobs.

"Amy, first, and this is very important," the Doctor said delicately, "I have to save these people. Remember them? If I were to leave right now, take you back to your time, I may never be able to return to this point. It all would be for nothing. John, Mrs. Hudson, your friends, Rory, they'll all be gone. I have to save them and it has to be now."

Amy nodded, tears still streaming down her face.

"And I think I figured out how."

.

Back at the TARDIS, Amy sat in a chair by the console while the Doctor threw levers and explained his plan.

"Remember how I cut off the teleportation link and brought us back to London?" Amy nodded. "I think that the same link still exists with the others. If I could just expand the range of the sonic's power throughout the cybermen's ship, I think I could cut off all the links and send those not 'upgraded' back to London. I'm sure it's taken years to build up the connections throughout all of London, and when I break the bonds, it will end any and all links they have and send them far, far away from London, from Earth."

"So? Why aren't you doing that?" Amy asked, nearly forgetting why she was so sad, why her face was stained and her mascara was smeared. She tried to put it past her, think that, in only hours, she would be back with Sherlock. She got her mind into the frame of adventuring, saving people.

"That's a good question." That TARDIS abruptly braked and the Doctor grabbed a strange machine from under the console. He turned around and noticed Amy smiling. "Ready, then? Come along, Pond!"

They opened the door and found themselves facing a long line of people sitting with their backs to them, awaiting their impending doom.

The Doctor immediately started setting up his machine. It sat on a tri-pod and a large satellite dish sprouted from the top. He started fiddling with the wires and buttons, setting it up so that the signal transferred the span of the ship.

"And this is where things get loud," the Doctor said. He flipped on the sonic. The usual quiet buzz had been amplified by nearly 100 times. Amy's hands went to cover her ears. The people sitting in the hall noticed them and they heard screams as people saw the same blue light that had brought them here appearing on their bodies.

"Delete, delete. You will be deleted, trespasser," a cold mechanic voice said amidst the screams of panic and the sonic's blaring noise.

"Doctor!" Amy screamed over the noise, frightened, unsure of what to do.

"Amy, do you have a gun, anything? I just need 1 more minute. Almost everyone should be back I London, but there are a few stragglers. I need to boost the signal.

The screams were nearly nonexistent, but the Cybermen were still advancing, slowly but very surely. The ship was coming apart at the seams. This is what the Doctor must have meant. The ship was tied to the teleportation link. When it came down, so did the Cybermen.

"No gun, Doctor!" Amy shouted back.

"Okay, I'll superboost the energy field. Should be about 10 seconds now. Stay away from their hands!" The Cybermen were so close to them now, arms outstretched. Just before one of them grabbed Amy's shoulder, the Doctor yelled "Done!" and they both went sprinting back into the TARDIS.

Amy could hear the Cybermen's fists against the dor as the Doctor pushed buttons and finally flipped the final lever. All was silent save the whirring engine.

"Ingenious, Doctor," Amy said, a smile on her face amid the fear and aching sadness. It was a sad smile, but the Doctor would take it.

They landed again in London 2012 and were both relieved to see people utterly confused but still going on, not wanting to miss important plans or dates.

"You really love him, don't you?" the Doctor asked Amy when he saw Amy's eyes begin to redden again. She turned to face the Doctor and nodded very slowly. She hadn't known it before but, now, when the Doctor asked her, it seemed like it was the only truthful answer.

"Come along, then, Pond. It's time we got you back to your Sherlock."

* * *

** UPDATE: oh my god its been such a crazy week! im so sorry that i havent updated and i just now realized that it seems like this could be the end of the story (why do i always do that?). its not! i promise you! super sorry, my beautiful readers. i will have a post up in the next few days, i swear! thank you, love you!**


	14. Chapter 14

**geez! that took way too long to write, let me tell you. lots of scrapping and rewriting. so sorry about the wait, i was just honestly so busy with summer reading and being social. **

**anyway, here is chapter 14! i guess it's a longer chapter, so at least there's that.  
**

**i've been seeing that other authors are writing disclaimers on their stories, so, just to let you know, i do not own doctor who or sherlock or anything pertaining to the two.  
**

**R&R! Enjoy!  
**

* * *

The Doctor led Amy back into the TARDIS. Slowly, he walked around the console, throwing levers and flipping switches as always.

"Don't forget," the Doctor said as they took off, "about you're old raggedy Doctor."

"Doctor, how could I ever forget you?" Amy went over and gave him a hug. He rubbed her back. "I'll be back in a few days. In the meantime, go spend time with your wife. I'm sure she misses you."

The Doctor smiled and hit a button, stopping the TARDIS. Amy gave him a sad smile and walked toward the door.

"You can't tell him, Amy. No matter how much you want to, you can't," the Doctor reminded her. She nodded and turned around, opening the door.

Snow fell around her as she stepped out onto the street. It caught in her hair, freezing her to the bone, but she didn't care. She was already numb. She walked up to the door, her stomach flipping uncontrollably. Just as she was about to knock, the door flew open and Sherlock was standing in front of her, pale as ever, still wearing his same coat and Amy could see the surprise in his eyes.

Overwhelmed, Amy fell into him, grabbing him, never wanting to let go. Sherlock immediately wrapped his arms around her, something that she wasn't expecting him to do. She felt his bony frame in her arms and his cool hands on her back. Tears of happiness ran down her face and stained his jacket. It was such a relief to see him there, alive.

Oh, God, it was good to see her again, Sherlock thought, holding Amy in his arms. It had been 8 months now, and he was sure that she was never coming back. He had heard the whirring noise that had haunted his dreams and knew that she was there again, that she had come to see him.

"I've missed you," she whispered into his coat. He held her tighter.

"I've missed you, too," he said for the first time in his life. He'd never missed anyone as much as he'd missed her. His memories of her laughing on his couch, of joking with him, of her saving his life, of their last and only kiss, could never measure up to seeing her again. His stomach lurched when she broke their embrace.

Amy looked up at Sherlock, wanting so much to kiss him. And she would have too, if it weren't for the look on his face. He wore surprise, clear as day. That much didn't matter to her; she knew he'd be surprised. But, underneath the surprise, there was more, something that Amy couldn't quite place. It seemed like sadness, but he was smiling as much as she'd ever seen him smile.

Sherlock wanted to kiss Amy, too. He had been thinking nonstop about her, about her departure and the kiss she had planted on him, only to turn away and leave. Her last words replayed constantly in his head. It seemed as though she had never wanted to see him again. Sherlock watched as surprising, hot tears rolled down Amy's cheek.

"You're crying," he said, brushing away a tear with his thumb. Now that he was really noticing her, it looked like she'd been crying for a long while. "What's happened?"

"Nothing," Amy replied hastily. He could tell that she was having trouble keeping this secret away from him, but he wasn't going to push it. "I just, missed you, is all."

Amy quickly collected herself, wiping the unwanted tears from her face.

"Come in," Sherlock said, opening the door wider behind him. Amy stepped into the warm foyer, shivering from the sudden heat. "John's upstairs."

Amy and Sherlock walked up side-by-side, silently. They rounded the corner to John, closing the door to 221B and putting on his most warm jacket. The sight of Amy shocked him.

"Amy! Hi!" John said, walking over and grabbing Amy into a friendly hug. "How are you?"

"I'm great," Amy said, only half-lying. She still couldn't forget what she had seen in 2014, but being with Sherlock made things somewhat better. Even if they weren't together in the way that Amy had hoped.

"That's great. Look, I'm headed out to the grocery because we seem to be out of…everything. Again. I would offer you some tea, but it seems we're even out of that. I'd imagine you weren't here to see much of me, though," John said casually, casting a glance at Sherlock. He wasn't hurt at all that Amy didn't want to see him, though. He knew how much Sherlock had missed her. "I'll get out of your hair."

At that, John pushed past the pair and hightailed down the stairs. Amy gave Sherlock a sidelong glance before casually throwing open the door and entering the flat. Immediately, Amy noticed that nothing had changed whatsoever since her last visit. Papers were still strewn about, bullet holes still filled the wall, and the furniture was in exactly the same place.

Like last time, Sherlock began tidying up around the small living area.

"You really don't have to do that, Sherlock," Amy said, walking over to the couch and sitting down, back straight and legs crossed. 8 months ago, she would have walked in, thrown herself onto the couch and sat however she wanted – most likely with her knees tucked up against her chest, a habit she had picked up from Sherlock. Now, though, she almost felt uncomfortable. Prolonged time away from someone could do that.

Sherlock stopped abruptly, throwing what was in his hand back to the table, and came over to sit next to Amy. The word _awkward _sprang to Sherlock's mind as he sat, hands folded on his lap, next to Amy. They were silent for a few moments while thoughts raced through their heads.

Sherlock wanted so much to kiss her, to be close to her, feel her on him. But no, Sherlock thought. They couldn't do any of those things. She had only kissed him as a goodbye, not because she liked him. He tried to push thoughts of them together away.

Amy wanted nothing more than to run her fingers through Sherlock's curly dark brown hair, feel his lips on her lips. But she couldn't. She had made the first move last time and she didn't know if Sherlock felt the same way about her, especially after 8 months of her absence.

Sherlock leaned forward, wringing his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. More silence. He wanted her and she had to tell her. But he couldn't bring himself to.

Amy followed suit, leaning forward and burying her face in her hands out of sheer embarrassment for thinking that things would be suddenly _okay _if she showed up. Stupid, stupid Amy.

At the same time, they both turned to each other. Amy to say she was sorry and Sherlock to tell her how much she meant to him. But, as they both turned and opened their mouths to speak, their lips bumped against each other. They both sat up straight and turned to look at each other, mirrored looks of surprise on their faces.

"I, I'm s—" Amy started saying but was abruptly cut off.

Sherlock's lips collided forcefully into Amy's, who was taken by surprise, but not unhappy. Without a moment's hesitation, she responded, leaning into him. Her fingers dug their way into his curls, getting caught. Sherlock, not knowing she would respond so quickly, made a move back. One hand found its way to her hip and the other to her face. Eventually, they broke away, breathless and elated. Amy was practically sitting on his lap.

"Well," Sherlock said, breaking the comfortable silence.

Out of pure happiness, Amy broke into a fit of giggles, and Sherlock joined her. When the laughter would seem to die down, they would start up laughing again. Finally, Sherlock ended it with a quick peck to Amy's cheek. Amy returned it with another, lengthier kiss on the lips.

"7 months," Sherlock said, his voice breaking, leaning his forehead against Amy's.

"I'm so sorry," Amy said, truthfully sorry that she had put him through any pain. She'd never meant to, but leaving had seemed such a good idea at the time.

"It was probably only about 3 weeks for you, wasn't it?" Sherlock asked, not angry, just curious.

"No, it was 8," Amy replied, remembering the ache in her chest every time she thought of Sherlock or saw something that reminded her of him. "8 months."

Sherlock looked up at that. So that meant that the two of them had been apart for around the same amount of time. Actually, technically, Amy had suffered more. He was still confused by time travel.

"What made you come back?" Sherlock asked. Amy took in a sharp breath, not knowing how to answer. She couldn't tell him the truth, but she didn't want to lie. Instead of answering, she pressed her lips to his.

At that moment, a loud cough echoed from the doorway. Amy and Sherlock pulled apart to see John standing across the room, grocery bags held at his side. The pair jumped apart, hoping maybe he didn't see them together. It was futile, they knew, John wasn't that thick. But he just smiled.

"Get a room, you two."


	15. Chapter 15

**Well, golly-gee willikers. it's been quite a week, or so. i've honestly been trying to upload this all day long, but i got caught up in tumblr, and facebook, and the nerdfighteria, and i stupidly wrote this one on a few pieces of paper, so i didn't really have the patience to sit down and type it all up again.  
not to mention that after over a week of not updating, all i've got to show for is a completely fluff-filled chapter. but, since i've yet to come across any smutty pondlocks, i do believe that this particular shipdom likes themselves some fluff.**

**so, without further ado, here is chapter 15, in which nothing goes anywhere.  
**

**also, for all of the mental people out there who, for some reason, think i own doctor who or sherlock, i do not. sadly, i think that moffat owns _me. _  
**

**enjoy!  
**

* * *

"We're going out tonight."

Amy looked up from her books at Sherlock, sitting behind his computer, looking expectantly at Amy.

"W-what, like a date?" Amy asked an incredulous look on her face. Sherlock had never wanted to go out. In the past 3 days she' been here, she had always had to drag him out of the house when she wanted to do something.

"That's what I was suggesting." Sherlock quickly stood up and walked over to grab his coat and scarf from the rack. "Your Doctor is coming to pick you up in 10 hours. I figured we'd make the most of your last night."

"Why the Doctor insists on picking me up at 4 o'clock in the bloody morning, I'll never know."Amy had spent nearly an hour on the phone with the Doctor earlier that day, trying to set up a time for him to pick her up. He had originally said 1 am, and she had originally said 10, but they somehow settled on 4. She stood up as well, throwing her copy of _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _on the tabletop and crossing the room to grab her coat, too – she had gone and bought some clothes that were better suited for the season. "But a date sounds lovely."

"Great. Where should we go, then?" The pair left the living area and descended the stairs.

"Angelo's. I love that place."

Amy and Sherlock walked contentedly out the door and down the street, side by side. Ever since that first day, they had not kissed once and went on like they were before – just friends. Amy was sad and terribly confused as to whether or not Sherlock even wanted them to become more than that. But after that first kiss…

Sherlock had no idea how to handle a relationship. Before he met Amy, he'd only ever had one friend, john. And then she came alone, and now she wanted to be more and so did he. God, so did he. But, in any case, he didn't know how. He had wanted so much to kiss her again, but he could never tell if the moment was right and she wasn't making any moves either. It was just like nothing had happened, and they were back to being friends, just like before.

Unexpectedly, even to himself, Sherlock reached d over and silently grabbed Amy's hand. At first, it was cold and rigid in his, but then her fingers slowly relaxed and wound themselves around Sherlock's.

Finally, a sign, Amy though, intertwining her hand in his. At least she knew he still felt the same way she did. She looked up to see him slightly grinning back at her. It was going to be hard to leave him so soon, his constant companionship, especially knowing what was coming in his future. She shot a sad smile back at him and then looked down at the sidewalk, feeling tears prick at the back of her eyes.

They rounded a corner and Sherlock saw Angelo's at the end of the street. A frigid wind whipped down the avenue and Amy turned into Sherlock, blocking her face from the icy chill that threatened to chap her fair skin. Sherlock's chest was surprisingly warm and heat radiated from his jacket.

When the wind died down and Amy's hair stopping blowing in both of their faces, she slowly removed her head from Sherlock's chest and they kept walking, Amy noticing a much larger smile on Sherlock's face now. He had found it funny how she had tried to hide herself away from the cold in Sherlock's jacket. It was really…cute; he finally found the right word. It was weird. He'd never thought of anyone as cute before.

They walked hand-in-hand into Angelo's and were seated at a corner table, a change set in the middle. Sherlock and Amy sat facing each other, awkwardly not knowing what to say.

"It's different now, when we're on a date. It seems so official," Amy noted, after several failed attempts at starting a conversation. Sherlock looked up from his small, almost-finished plate of food to curtly nod his agreement.

"Maybe we should just try to forget that we're on a date?" she suggested, blowing out the candle in front of them.

"Okay, so what do normal people talk about when they're," he cleared his throat, "not on a date?"

"Whatever's on their mind, I guess," Amy replied finishing off her risotto. "What did we talk about before?"

"Well, I talked about the science of deduction and being a consulting detective and you failed to tell me about this other man you've been spending so much time with."

"Oi! I did tell you! And he's not technically a man…"

"I bet he still functions like one."

"Ooh, jealous, are we now, Sherlock?"

"Not jealous, no. Never jealous. Simply stating."

"You're out-right jealous."

"Am not."

"Are too!"

"Waitress!" Sherlock called, raising his hand in the air, smiling at his clever way of stopping the banter and shutting her up.

Amy shot him a mock-angry glare as the waitress came up to their table.

"Can I do something for you?" she asked, a smile plastered on her face.

"Just the check, please," Sherlock said. The waitress, Becky, smiled and cleared their empty plated from the table.

"What, no dessert?" Amy asked as she walked away. Sherlock chuckled.

Rather quickly, Becky came back with the check.

"Anything else?" Service with a smile.

Amy smiled and shook her head. "No, we're good, thanks."

"Okay, then have a great night. You guys are such a cute couple, by the way." She flashed a grin and walked away.

"Hear that, Sherlock? We're cute," Amy said, standing up when Sherlock slapped the money and the check back on the table.

"We are, aren't we?" Sherlock leaned over and placed a kiss on Amy's cheek.

That was the first sign of affection he'd shown since the first night. And…in public. Amy's excitement was plain on her fair. He cared enough to let all of the people in Angelo's know that she was his.

They walked out of the restaurant hand-in-hand, both beaming. Well, Sherlock was smiling about as much as he ever did in public, but still Amy could tell he was please just as much as she was.

"John!" Sherlock called as they opened the front door of 221B. There was no response.

"Mrs. Hudson!" Amy called. Still silence. A slight smile grew on her features. She turned to Sherlock. "We're alone."

A look of understanding and mischief crossed over his face. They were very much alone. And very much thinking the same thing.

Amy moved in closer on Sherlock, and he did the same, closing the gap between them until they were just inches from each other. My leaned forward and put her lips on his. Immediately, electricity pumped through her veins like a current.

The kiss grew more passionate, and Sherlock kicked the door closed, wrapping his arms around her hips, pulling her closer to him.

Forcefully, Amy pushed away from him, breathless, a small smiled playing on her lips.

"I'm not doing this in an entry way," she said and then added with a gleam in her eye, "not again."

Sherlock laughed and grabbed her hand, leading her up the stairs.

They ended up on the couch, lock in embrace, cared and logic left behind. It was only the two of them in the world, _the universe_, Sherlock reminded himself. Nothing else matter.

Amy started to unbutton his shirt – their jackets lay somewhere abandoned near the door – but Sherlock was quick to stop her, grabbing her hands and pulling away.

"What – don't you want to -?" Amy looked up at him, confused and slightly hurt, Sherlock could see it in her eyes. Obviously, she thought, she had gotten the wrong impression…?

"No, Amy," Sherlock said breathlessly. "No, I wouldn't rather do anything more. But, just, not this way. You're leaving in the morning."

"Yeah? _I'm leaving in the morning." _Amy looked up at an ever-confused Sherlock. "You really aren't like most blokes, you know that, right?"

"No, I'm not, but I don't think it's the superior brain function that you're talking about," Sherlock said, sitting up.

"And they said there were no more gentlemen left in the world," Amy said exasperatedly, but smiling, joking with the detective. "Obviously they'd never met Sherlock Holmes. Well, time for bed."

Amy hopped up abruptly from the couch and strode across the room to the bottom of the stairs. "I'm leaving in 5 hours, and I _think _I could use a bit of sleep. Shame on you for trying to keep me awake." And with a smile, she was on her way up the stairs.


	16. Chapter 16

**ohmigod, what is wrong with me? i cannot seem to stop writing fluff. i guess it'll pick up in the next chapter. there's going to be a pretty large time lapse in there.**

**jussayin, sherlock is so completely ooc in the chapter it's not even funny. i hope you don't care.**

**so, disclaimer: i don't own any of these wonderful characters, though i wish i did. bbc, we should make a deal.  
**

**R&R! enjoy!  
**

* * *

Two months later, Amy stood once again on the steps of Sherlock's flat. Only, this time, she was only here to pick Sherlock up.

Through a couple months of coaxing and a few visits, Amy had finally enticed Sherlock to come up in the TARDIS with her and the Doctor. They were only going to go to Space Florida, so as to ease Sherlock into the whole travelling-through-time-and-space idea.

The door squeaked open behind an impatient Amy now sitting on the steps, waiting for Sherlock to come out. She looked up and behind her to see Sherlock still in his coat, minus the scarf, and a small bag of his things clenched in his fist beside him.

"Ready, then?" Amy asked, excited as a six-year-old on their way to an amusement parked. She was practically hopping up and down.

"Sure, I guess. You should know that I've never done well with flying. It illogically makes me woozy," Sherlock said, throwing up a shield so that he wouldn't have to go. Amy guessed it was just because he didn't want to be proven wrong.

"I know, Sherlock. You've told me a million times. And I've told you a million and one times that the TARDIS doesn't feel like flying at all." Amy grabbed up Sherlock's bag and made a run for the TARDIS door so that he had to follow her. Reluctantly, he did.

The Doctor came out of the door when Amy knocked loudly, poking his head out first to see Sherlock. A smile instantly took over his face.

"Sherlock Holmes!" the Doctor yelled, bounding out of the TARDIS to shake Sherlock's hand. Sherlock was confused as ever but grudgingly took the Doctor's hand and shook. "I've heard tons and tons about you!"

"Yeah, he nearly seems to know more about you than you know about yourself," Amy said, looking at the Doctor and laughing. Sherlock, feeling awkward in the company of someone he didn't know aside from Amy's stories, laughed along.

Sherlock immediately read the man, hoping to stave off the awkwardness. He saw from his tweed jacket and bow-tie that the Doctor hardly knew anything about recent fashion, though bow-ties were coming back into style. Sherlock wondered if the Doctor had had anything to do with that. Judging by the wear on his shoes, the Doctor was a man who ran nearly everywhere he went. He looked young but, from what Amy told him and what Sherlock could see in his eyes, he was older than he seemed. Sherlock knew that he was _much _older than he seemed. There was a bulge in his left upper pocket resembling a fat pen, and Sherlock decided that this was the sonic screwdriver from Amy's adventures. Also, the Doctor had had 4 Jammy Dodgers and a cup of tea for breakfast.

Amy grabbed Sherlock's hand, shocking him out of his reverie, and pulling him into the TARDIS. He looked around and saw a room as big as his entire flat, if not bigger. A large console stood in the middle of the room on a glass platform. Shock filled him and his brain went higher trying to make any logical sense of the open space. A trick of the light or something. But no. As Sherlock walked on, he could see that it was very much real and very much big.

"I guess I'm supposed to say 'it's bigger on the inside' now, aren't I?" Sherlock asked, pulling a lever and shaking the room. He hastily put it back, hoping he didn't cause anything to happen that would doom them all. His stomach fell to the floor and his face turned whiter than he had meant it to.

"Hey," Amy said gently and quietly, walking over to him and sliding her hand into his. "It's all going to be okay. Look, we'll be there in just a minute. Right, Doctor?" She raised her voice and turned away from Sherlock.

"Nearly there, just another second…" The Doctor hit another button and immediately the TARDIS landed, jaunting Sherlock too much. He ran over to the door and looked outside, hoping to put his feet down on the ground.

When he opened the door he was surprised again to see that the entire scenery had changed. Gone was his flat and the streets of London. They were instead replaced by hot, white sand and blue water stretching on for miles in either direction.

"Welcome to Space Florida!" the Doctor said, suddenly appearing at Sherlock's side wearing his bright red swim trunks. "Amy's been here before, so she'll know her way around if you need anything. But I'm going swimming!"

Amy came up next to him in lieu of the Doctor who had taken off like a child and was now splashing about in the ocean. Or, space ocean.

"A bit overwhelming, isn't it?" Amy asked, taking his hand. Sherlock only nodded. "You'll get used to it. But for now, just pretend that it's real America Florida. That helps sometimes. And you look really ridiculous in that big coat. Aren't you hot?"

Sherlock had forgotten about his coat but now that he thought about it, it was _really _hot. Hotter than most summer days in London. He had started sweating without his knowledge.

"I forgot about it," he said. They turned back into the TARDIS and Amy showed him where the bathroom was so that he could change into his swimsuit. Sherlock had to go to the store to get on yesterday because the last time he'd been to a beach was in his college years. It's not that he didn't like the beach, he just had never had the time. Or had ever wanted to.

Sherlock stepped out the bathroom in his blue swim shorts with little orange birds on them. Not knowing what to do, he started wandering the never-ending halls of the TARDIS, looking for the door to Amy's room.

Finally, he heard Amy singing loudly, muffled behind a door that could only be to her room. Sherlock stood amused outside the door with a smirk on his face. He was surprised when the door opened, but not as surprised as a still-singing Amy who quickly shut her mouth.

"How long have you been standing there?" Amy said, wrapping her see-through cover up around her body and crossing her arms, suddenly self-conscious.

"Long enough to hear your rendition of…"

"Bohemian Rhapsody," she replied, still bemused by Sherlock's stupidity when it came to modern (and not so modern) culture. "You should look it up sometime. It's a great song."

They walked wordlessly down the twisting hallways before finding their way back to console room and out the door into the hot, Space Floridian sunlight.

"I'll race you to the water!" Amy yelled, taking off and pushing Sherlock, who lost his balance and fell to the ground. Amy turned around to see him, looking confused and laying on his back in the hot sand. "Come on!" she yelled, laughing so hard that she nearly fell over herself.

Sherlock just looked up at her, smiled, got to his feet, and started sprinting to the water. Amy had never thought that he could run that fast. He was getting closer to her and she gathered herself and started running toward the water, Sherlock behind, but gaining on her.

When Amy had just felt the cool water on her toes, Sherlock ran up behind her and grabbed her stomach with one arm, spinning and falling into the shallow water, only about up to Sherlock's thigh when he was standing, but enough to fully engulf the both of them when they were flat on the ocean bottom.

Amy pushed her way to the surface, laughing and being slammed by incessant waves. Sherlock surfaced too, only inches from Amy. The two bobbed up and down, staring at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Sherlock leaned closer and just as he was about to kiss her, a giant inflatable ball came out of nowhere and hit Amy in the head.

"Oi!" she yelled, turning away from Sherlock and toward the Doctor who stood 5 feet away from them, hands behind his back, whistling like he had nothing to do with the interruption. "I know it was you!"

Amy laughed and disappeared under the water. The Doctor looked over at Sherlock, his expression asking "where did Amy go?" but Sherlock only shrugged and laughed. The Doctor yelped and started laughing, Amy resurfacing only a few inches from him.

"What did you just do?" the Doctor asked, still laughing.

"Hey, these nails aren't here just to look pretty," Amy said, smiling and waving her fingers in front of her.

"Well, keep them away from me," Sherlock said and Amy whipped her head around, a mischeivous gleam in her eye.

"Are you challenging me, Sherlock?" She waggled her eyebrows at him and then disappeared under the water again.

"Oh, no, not this time," Sherlock said to himself and the Doctor and dunked his head underneath the water and put his hands in front of him. Amy's face immediately ran into them. She grabbed them and then pulled him up out of the water with her.

"Not fair," she said, pushing Sherlock with the tips of her fingers.

Sherlock pushed back.

"Oh, you wanna go, detective?" Amy laughed and pushed Sherlock full-force with the palms of her hands. He barely moved.

"You're not going to win this." Sherlock pushed her back and she lost her footing a bit before regaining her balance.

"Oi, you can't hit a girl!" Amy flashed an innocent smile, pushing him again.

"I can if she hits me first." Sherlock pushed lightly again, and Amy stumbled once again.

"Okay, okay, I'm done with this," she said, and walked closer to Sherlock, placed her hands on his chest and leaned in for a kiss. Sherlock closed his eyes and leaned in, too, and was pushed and thrown off balance, plopping into the ocean below.

"That's not playing fair!" Sherlock said when he came up. Amy was laughing so hard that her cheeks were flaming a bright red, matching her hair.

"I can't believe you fell for it!" Amy laughed some more. "I win! Doctor, look! I beat him!

Sherlock just stood in embarrassment. "Well, I let her!"

.

Hours and hours later, after watching the sunset dip down past the water, Sherlock and Amy flopped down on to Amy's twin-sized bed in the TARDIS.

"Oh, my God, that was the best day ever!" Amy said, turning her head to face Sherlock.

"I know, you've said about a million times." Sherlock laughed. When he thought abou it, he probably hadn't laughed that much in any one day. He probably hadn't laughed that much in the past year.

"Well, didn't you have loads of fun?" Amy asked, but not before slapping him playfully.

"Loads. Now, will you please scoot over? I'm falling off the bed." Sherlock moved closer to Amy.

"Hey, you're squishing me!" Amy pushed him. He nearly fell off the bed, and she laughed.

"You've got 'round a foot of room next to you. You can share, Amy."

"Well, I guess sharing is caring," Amy laughed, moving over, sharing more of the bed with Sherlock. They lay shoulder-to-shoulder on the small bed, big enough that if they didn't move, they would both be comfortable. "I just wanted to see if you would fall off."

Sherlock laughed and they lay in silence for a few minutes, thinking about the most amazing of days. It wasn't going to be forgotten for a long while.

"I can't feel any part of me," Sherlock said, realizing his body was going numb, shutting off from the long day of over-excertion.

"Me neither." Amy slid her hand into his. She sighed audibly, closing her eyes, content.

"Can you feel this?" Sherlock sat up on his elbow with great effort, leaning down and planting a kiss on Amy's lips, but he didn't feel the usual pressure of her kissing him back. She was already asleep.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N:**_  
_

**So, I realize how long it's been since I've pubbed (which I'm super, super sorry for, I've just been so busy) and I've been writing this chapter for a couple days, but I still don't think it's very good.**

**So, enjoy, and please R&R!**

* * *

_Winter._

Amy huddled closely to Sherlock, a blanket pulled up around the both of them so as to stave off the chill. A fire was lit hastily next to them in the ancient fireplace and Sherlock and Amy were still both frozen to the bone.

"God, how could have the heating gone out?" Amy asked, teeth chattering. Sherlock hugged her closer, trying to warm her with his body heat.

"The ice storm's knocked out all the electricity on the street. They're working on it, but it doesn't seem like we're going to have power back for the rest of the week."

"Yeah, but it just seems like we should have heat, too. The rest of the street's got heat."

"Older building, I guess."

Amy stopped the conversation there. She thought that talking would be a distraction, but when they were talking _about the cold_, it just made her colder.

The pair hugged each other closer, and moved toward the fireplace, dragging the blanket behind them around their shoulders, and they found themselves missing Space Florida.

_Spring. _

"Don't you just love spring?" Amy asked Sherlock as they went on a walk, hand-in-hand around the center of London. They hadn't been out for a while, due to the winter, but the last of the snow had melted and the trees were starting to look a bit less bare.

"I don't have a preference when it comes to seasons. I can find something wrong with every one of them," Sherlock said, sniffling and pulling a tissue out of his pocket. "Spring, for example, brings allergies."

"Oi, get over it you big baby and stop and smell the roses!"

"I would if I could."

_Summer._

"It's so hot," Amy said, flopping on to the couch as Sherlock typed madly away on his computer about his newest experiment. Something to do with a toe he kept hidden in their closet.

"Wasn't it just a few months ago that you were complaining about how cold it was?" Sherlock asked, never looking up from his computer screen.

"God knows I would give anything for that again," Amy said, fanning herself with a limp hand.

"That's not what you were saying in the middle of winter…" Sherlock said, a bead of sweat trickling down his face. He wiped it away and continued typing.

Amy sat up. "Well, I'm saying it now. I mean, God, at least then we could snuggle up together… Now I don't even want to touch you."

"Hmm, are you sure about that?" Sherlock clicked the save button on his Word document and walked over to where Amy was sitting. He sat down fairly far away from her on the couch.

"Don't you get any closer to me," she said.

Sherlock inched closer.

"Oi, I mean it."

Sherlock inched closer still, and now their skin was nearly touching.

"Oh, get your sweaty skin off mine."

Sherlock moved closer again, and this time he was right next to Amy, grabbing her hands. They stuck together from perspiration.

"Ew, ew, ew!" Amy screamed, attempting to get up and run away from him, but her grabbed her by the waist and sat her down on his lap. "Let me go!"

"Never!" Sherlock joked and started kissing her neck. Amy shrieked and laughed but was silenced when his lips met hers.

"Still don't want to touch me?"

_Fall._

Amy rolled over on to her side, pulling the covers off of Sherlock as she went. Sherlock lay next to her in uncomfortable coldness, but unwilling to wake up Amy.

As strange as it sounded, and as foreign as the feeling was to him, he sort of liked to watch her sleep. Recently, Amy had been sort of nervous about something. She was constantly checking her watch and, even though Sherlock could tell she was trying to hide it, she looked panicky. When Sherlock asked her about it, she snapped back at him, pretending like she was just fine. It worried Sherlock. But when Amy slept, she looked comfortable and peaceful, and Sherlock thought he might just keep the thought of her like that tucked away into his mind.

Amy stirred again, this time turning toward Sherlock. He watched as her eyes fluttered open and a moment of panic struck her before she finally realized that she was safe, _at home._ She smiled groggily and then closed her eyes again.

"Good morning," Sherlock said to the still-smiling Amy.

"Morning," she said back, quietly.

"You're quite the blanket hog."

"Sorry. I was cold," Amy said, opening only one eye. "Do you want them back?"

"That'd be nice," Sherlock said.

Amy rolled over to Sherlock's side of the bed and on to Sherlock himself, throwing the blankets around and cocooning them in warmth. Then she leaned down and placed a kiss on his lips, as she did every morning. It had become one of their habits.

"All better now?" she asked sarcastically, twining her fingers around his messy curls. She leaned down to steal another kiss from Sherlock, when the door was flung open and John came crashing in.

"He's back."

.

Amy quickly found out that the "he" that John had been talking about was Moriarty, Sherlock's archenemy. Up until now, she'd only heard stories of him, but was told that seeing him in person was somewhat terrifying.

But she'd faced the Daleks, and the Weeping Angels, how much scarier could one man be? Amy guessed she'd find out soon enough.

She looked down at her watch, 27 November 2014. 55 days until the day that Amy believed to be Sherlock's last day on earth, when the newspaper had that horrible headline. _Consulting Detective Dead. _It still haunted her dreams.

"Sherlock," Amy said as he grabbed the doorknob to leave.

"Yes, Amy?" he asked. He clearly wanted to leave and see what all the chaos was about with Moriarty, but he still wanted to hear what Amy wanted to say.

"I don't want you to go," she said softly. She knew it was selfish of her – all of London needed the world's first consulting detective to lock away the world's first consulting criminal – but she had a strong feeling that Moriarty would be the cause of his death.

"Amy, it's fine." Sherlock came over and sat on the bed next to Amy, already in his coat and scarf, and put a hand on her leg. "Everything's going to be okay."

Amy nodded but didn't believe him. How could she? She wanted to so badly, but she knew something he didn't and could never know.

She looked up at him, a small smile plastered on her face. He looked so confident. He was going to catch Moriarty this time.

Or maybe it would be Moriarty who caught him.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Dear goodness, I'm really super sorry for how long it's been since I've uploaded. School started, and then I did NaNoWriMo last month, and it's just been very hectic. I have been writing, just not Pondlock.**

**Not to mention, I was so sad after the departure of the Ponds that I physically couldn't bring myself to write anymore, but that's a personal problem.**

**Okay, I might sort of hate this chapter, but I think it's the longest that I've ever uploaded, so have fun with it! Should be wrapping up in just a couple of chapters...**

**Special thanks to everyone who reviewed and favorited and followed my story! And to everyone who read it! You guys are really the best.**

**REALLY IMPORTANT: I changed the date from last chapter, because I didn't realize how long of a time that Reichenbach covered. so, sorry for the confusion but it's not 17 days, it's more.**

**Disclaimer: Yeah, none of the characters are mine soooo.**

* * *

"James Moriarty isn't a man at all. He's a spider. A spider at the center of a web. A criminal web with a thousand threads and he knows precisely how each and every single one of them dances." Amy listened as Sherlock gave his testimony at the courthouse a week later, but she couldn't help but keep staring down at the man himself: Moriarty.

Seeing him for the first time was like looking into the eyes of a Weeping Angel, or staring down the eyestalk of a Dalek. Horrifying, bone-chilling.

Now, sitting next to John, Amy watched Moriarty from above. She kept her eyes trained on him the whole time, suddenly in a panic that he may leap across the courtroom and at Sherlock's throat, though she knew that he was more elegant than that. He would never kill Sherlock; they were equals, they balanced each other.

Sherlock glanced quickly up at Amy before answering the judge's question. Clean, precise, cutting, and extremely sarcastic. Amy rolled her eyes at him just as the judge looked straight at Sherlock and told him to stop showing off.

Sherlock smiled up at Amy before telling the judge exactly where he had been the previous night and found himself being escorted out of the courtroom by two policemen. Amy placed a hand over her eyes and shook her head, but still couldn't help but laugh. _That man._

"I'll go and bail him out," John said standing up and following Amy out of the gallery.

"I'll meet you at the flat, then?" she asked, jingling her keys in her pocket. There were three: her house key from Leadworth, a key to the TARDIS that the Doctor gave her after their trip to Alfalva Metraxis, and a key to 221B Baker Street.

John nodded and walked past Amy, turning right to get to the prison cells where they held those in contempt of court. Amy turned left and walked slowly down the stairs and out the door. Cold wind whipped at her hair, tossing it up all around her face and blurring her vision. She walked down the steps to the courthouse and hailed a taxi, which took so long that she could feel her toes getting cold in her Ugg boots. This always took less time when Sherlock was there…

Amy showed up at the flat and opened the door to an empty hallway as she expected. It wasn't like she'd never been there alone before, but she still felt like she was invading. As she was walking up the steps, her phone buzzed in her pocket.

"Hello?" she said into the receiver.

"Amy!" the voice on the other end practically screamed. Amy held it far away from her ear and smiled at it.

"Hello, Doctor," she said laughing. She reached the top of the stairs and started taking off her jacket, only to have it get stuck on her phone-holding arm.

"How long's it been?" he asked and Amy heard the familiar TARDIS landing noise on the other end.

"It's been about a month," she said, suddenly struck by how long it had been since she'd seen her Raggedy Doctor. Too long, really. But she couldn't just pack up and leave. Not now.

"What's the date there?" he asked, and Amy could tell that he was flipping switches around.

"Uh, December 4th." _48 days_, Amy thought.

"2013?" he asked, and Amy knew what he was thinking.

"Yes, Doctor."

"Amelia, you know I can come pick you up any time…"

"Doctor, I'm fine. Really."

"Fine, fine," he said, knowing that it was probably time to drop the subject. "So, any new cases?"

"Actually, sort of. Moriarty's back," she said and the Doctor giggled like a little girl on the other side.

"Moriarty! Oh, brilliant!" he said enthusiastically.

"No, Doctor. Not brilliant." Amy walked into the kitchen and filled a kettle up with water and put it on the stove, knowing that at least John would be wanting a cuppa when he got back. "Terrible. Creepy. Scary. Any of those would be better adjectives."

"Right, right. Sorry. I just keep forgetting that you're living all of this out. I mean, I've just _read _about it."

"Where?" Amy asked. "Where did you read the story of Sherlock Holmes?"

"I can't tell you that, Amy, but you'll read it one day, I'm sure. Not positive if I remember a fiery redhead anywhere in it, though. Perhaps I should go back and check…"

"Doctor," Amy started, but she heard the door slam downstairs. "I've got to go. I'll call you if we've got some down time, alright?"

"Alright," the Doctor said, and she could practically see his face falling. "I'll see you later. Places to go, planets to see!" He picked up his usual light tone again.

"Bye, Doctor," Amy said, smiling at her best friend and hanging up the phone just as the kettle started screaming next to her. She shushed it and picked it up, pouring it into three mugs.

"Don't do that," Amy heard John say as he pulled off his jacket.

"Do what?"

"The Look."

"The Look?"

"You're doing the Look again."

"I can't see it, can I?" A slight pause. "It's my face."

"Yes, and it's doing a thing. You're doing a 'We both know what's really going on here' face."

"Well, we do."

"No. I don't. Which is why I find the Face so annoying."

Amy chuckled and picked up the cups, now full of brewed tea, and walked them into the living room. It was a struggle trying to carry three all at the same time, but luckily, John was there to grab his right before it fell to the ground.

"Have you got any biscuits?" he asked and Amy slapped him across the back of the head after setting down Sherlock's mug.

"I'm not Mrs. Hudson."

"If Moriarty wanted the jewels he'd have them," Sherlock continued on, completely oblivious to John and Amy's conversation. He did pick up his tea, though. "If he wanted those prisoners free they'd be out on the streets. The only reason he's still in a prison cell right now is because he chose to be there. Somehow this is part of his scheme."

John and Sherlock exchanged a sobering glance and Amy felt left out, but that was normal. They had such a strange bond, especially when they were on cases; they could hold entire conversations with just a single look.

0.0.0

"Not guilty. They found him not guilty. No defense and Moriarty's walked free," John spouted into his phone the next day. Amy trailed behind him, struggling to keep up when she was wearing heels. She wished she could just have her Converse on…

"Sherlock, are you listening? He's out. You know he'll be coming after you." John took the phone off his ear and looked at it, apparently getting a blank screen. He turned back to Amy. "We've got to go, now. Moriarty's out there and he'll be looking for Sherlock."

"Go without me," Amy said, feeling blisters starting to form on the back of her ankles. "I'm rubbish at running in heels." John gave her a sympathetic look, but she just waved a hand at it. "_Go._" John took off running without a glance back at her.

It took an even longer time to hail a cab this time, but Amy imagined that it was because of the media circling the courthouse. She had to walk another three blocks before there was any way that she was getting a ride. By then, her shoes were off and held in her left hand, her right reaching up. A cab rolled up on the street beside her and she got in, the address to Sherlock's flat rolling off of her tongue; it had just become natural. She sulked in the back of the cab the whole way home, hoping that Sherlock was okay.

0.0.0

Two weeks later, Amy sat on the couch next to Sherlock. Well, not so much as next-to as sitting-by-the-feet-of. Sherlock still hadn't learned how to share too well, but at least it was a start. John sat in his chair opposite them with the Sports section of the paper held up in front of him. Sherlock muttered something under his breath, his hands folded in prayer position over his mouth, which was a position that he had been in quite often for the past two weeks.

"What was that?" Amy asked, looking up from her book.

"Nothing," Sherlock said, not even looking at her. Amy sighed and went back to reading about Lizzy Bennet and William Darcy.

"Do you want to go out?" Sherlock said, suddenly sitting upright. Amy squeaked in surprise and John stifled a laugh with a very fake cough. Amy threw a pillow at him and he just smiled, flipping the page of his paper, seemingly unphased.

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, not right now."

"Why not now?" Sherlock asked. "Would you rather read your book?"

"No, Sherlock. It's not dinner time yet. It's four o'clock. That's exactly been lunch and dinner time."

Sherlock muttered under his breath, something about society and constricted dining times. Amy smiled into her book.

"Where do you want to go tonight?" Sherlock asked an hour later, after getting extremely bored by whatever book he was reading.

"Well, it's Friday, isn't it? So, probably Chinese takeaway," Amy said. After a year of living with the man on and off, Amy was well-adjusted to his eating schedule…when he ate.

"Excellent," Sherlock said, and flopped back onto the couch, opening his book again and sighing with exasperation. Amy knew that he wasn't having any fun reading it, but she found that she didn't care too much. Darcy was just to tell Lizzy everything.

"Can we go now?" Sherlock asked Amy as she closed her book an hour later, finally having finished it.

"Is John invited, too?" she asked, looking around but not seeing the short one anywhere.

"He left about a half hour ago," Sherlock said, bounding off the couch and striding over to the coat rack.

"Oh, God. I'm turning into you," Amy joked and Sherlock gave her a sarcastic smile.

They walked in silence out the door, Sherlock letting Amy go down the stairs first. The walk to the Chinese takeaway place was just a few blocks away, so they decided to tough through the cold wind which nipped at Amy's nose and ears.

Once there, Sherlock ordered their usual two orders of chicken dumplings and they waited in the line as their food was prepared. This restaurant was _extremely _slow, but they gave Sherlock free food, so it was worth the wait.

"Why haven't you gone with the doctor recently?" Sherlock asked, not looking at Amy, but at a framed picture of a cat behind her head. "It's been, what, a month and a half now?"

"Are you complaining?" Amy asked sarcastically, but the humor was lost on Sherlock.

"No, I'm just asking a question." He looked at Amy now, puzzled.

"Um, okay. I don't know why I haven't been with him. Maybe I just really like spending time with you."

"Amy, you've been sitting on the couch for the past two weeks, and mostly sleeping there, too. You've gone through six books. We haven't talked since the day of the trial, and I know that you're _itching _for something better to do. I know you, and I know that settled life is not your style."

"Well, my style might be changing. What if I just want to stay at home with my boyfriend and his best mate and read books?" It still felt really strange calling Sherlock her boyfriend, but she could find no other word for it. Sherlock nodded and fell into silence, but continued to look directly at Amy, as if she were another specimen that he was studying.

"Does it bother you that we haven't had sex?" Sherlock asked forwardly, causing Amy to practically spit out her water.

"_What_?"

"I asked if it bothered you that –"

"I _know _what you asked," Amy said, cutting him off. She definitely didn't want to hear that question again. "Where did that even come from?"

"It's a logical question, Amy. Does it bother you? Statistically, most couples who have stayed together this long have had sex at least once, and we, statistically, haven't."

"Does it bother _you_?" she asked, turning the question so that she didn't have to answer. Sherlock seemed to have a quick comeback to that one, though.

"It only bothers me if it bothers you. I've never been particularly…inclined to sex, but with you it's…different. I could see myself with you, Amy."

"Right. Visual. Thanks for that," Amy said, squirming uncomfortably in her seat.

"Look, you don't have to answer the question if it makes you feel uncomfortable. I was just wondering…for future reference." Sherlock looked down at the table, and Amy could swear that she saw his cheeks go red.

"How future?" Amy asked, donning her more confident voice. Sherlock looked up and she could practically see the sweat beading on his forehead. "Actually," Amy said, changing her mind. "Don't tell me. I want to be surprised."

"So you're saying that you do…"

Amy shrugged her shoulders and gave him a nondescript answer, but she knew that he would be able to figure it out based on how tense her muscles were, or at what angle he lips were curved upward; something strange like that.

Just then, as Sherlock was looking at her with scrutinizing eyes, the lady at the front counter called out "Holmes!" Sherlock and Amy walked up to grab their takeaway and walked out of the door. Amy shivered involuntarily at the rush of cold air, and Sherlock wrapped his arm around her shoulders, noticing.

"Do you remember the first time that we met?" Amy asked, leaning her head into his chest as they walked slowly down the street.

"The pub. John had had one too many drinks that night, and he was _really keen _on showing you off to me. His college friend."

"And the next time we met at the same Chinese restaurant? We talked for about four hours that night."

"John said that was a bit strange, later. He said that he'd never known me to talk that long with anyone, let alone someone that I'd just met."

"Now that I know you well enough, I can see why he would see that as strange. You can't even go a full five minutes without getting into a tiff with the judge."

"There was something different about you from the start, Amy. I couldn't…I couldn't figure you out." Amy looked up at him in surprise; he'd never admitted this to her before. "I know why now; it's because of the Doctor. My mind couldn't deduce anything about you because it'd never been introduced to anything like that before. But I was so _intrigued _by you."

They rounded the corner and the door to 221B stood in front of them. Amy inserted her key into the lock and opened the door for Sherlock, who had his arms full of takeaway bags.

"Later," Sherlock said, putting his bags on the table next to him and continuing his story. "Later, I found out that it was more than just intrigue."

"Oh yeah?" Amy said, worried about what was going to come next.

"It was...I liked you."

"Yeah, I think I figured that one out for myself," Amy said, unzipping her jacket and pulling her scarf off from around her neck. Sherlock pulled his off, and started to unbutton his coat. Amy leaned across Sherlock as he was putting her coat on the coat rack to put hers up, too. Sherlock turned his head and their eyes met, their faces only centimeters from each other.

"Their only a few people that I like," Sherlock said. "John, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, Lestrade…"

Amy felt her stomach drop, wondering how he could leave out her name when she was standing right in front of him.

"And one that…" Sherlock was whispering now, his face was a dangerous distance from hers, and he couldn't resist from moving his head a fraction of an inch and meeting his lips with Amy's. As he kissed her, every other thought was pushed from his head and it was just him and Amy. He didn't even know how he was going to finish his sentence, and he frankly didn't care. Amy kissed him harder and they found themselves backed against the door. Amy pulled away for just a moment, needing a second to breathe and Sherlock finished his thought. "Love."

Amy's eyes shot quickly from the ground to his eyes, searching. Sherlock was momentarily petrified; he'd never used that word with anyone and was _scared _as to how she would react. Would she say it back? "I love you," he said again, hoping to remind her of his confession and get a response out of her.

"Sherlock," she whispered, and put her forehead against his. "I love you, too."

Sherlock's eyes widened and he looked straight into the eyes of Amy. He could tell that she meant it, and it wasn't something that she'd said often, either. To her best friends, yes. To her parents, yes. But never to a boyfriend, and he guessed that she probably thought that she'd never say it to him, either.

"I love you," she said again, this time laughing. She leaned forward and smiled into their kiss. Sherlock smiled, too and broke apart, pushing her at arm's length so that he could see her properly.

"I love you, Amy. And I want you to stay with me forever."

"I will. I promise, I will." Amy smiled at him compassionately and then got a mischievous gleam in her eye and cocked her eyebrow. Sherlock looked back at her questioningly.

"To answer your question from earlier: yes. It may not have then, but it's bothering me now." Sherlock searched his mental archive to try to figure out what she was talking about. Suddenly, it clicked.

"Well, I know how we can fix that," Sherlock replied, and pulled Amy's hand and led her up the stairs, leaving their food forgotten by the door.


	19. Chapter 19

**It's been far too long, hasn't it? I hate to make excuses but, you know, school. I've been busy and, ultimately, lazy. So, super sorry about that.**

**I'd like to thank every single person who read, and hopefully continues to read, this fun sideproject of mine. Thanks to everyone who favorite, reviewed, and alerted. You all have a special place in my heart.**

**Without further ado, here is chapter nineteen. It's actually quite a bit longer than most of my chapters so I hope that makes up for being a little bit slow on the update. No? Well, here it is anyway.**

**Disclaimer: Though I wish I did, I own none of these characters. That credit would go, mostly, to the infuriating duo of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss,**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"Happy Christmas!"

Sherlock jumped up and out of bed as fast as possible, landing in a defensive stance facing a disheveled Amy standing in the doorway, two large mugs of tea in her hands. Sherlock felt a rush of possessive pride when he noticed that she was wearing one of his many (unworn) undershirts – they had been a present from his mother last year for Christmas, but he found no use in wearing two shirts.

"Did I scare you, Sherlock?" Amy asked, walking forward and handing him his mug. She raised her eyebrow at him, but he just took his tea and changed the subject.

"Today isn't even Christmas, Amy," Sherlock said. He watched as a shiver passed through Amy and she crawled back under the warm covers of their bed and patted the spot next to her.

"No, but today is the Scotland Yard Christmas party," she said, a smile on her lips. It never failed to surprise Sherlock how much of polar opposites they were. She loved to go to parties, he hated them; she remembered what the date was, he wasn't even sure what year it was. It seemed to him that the only thing they had in common was each other.

"Do we have to go to that?" Sherlock whined like a twelve-year-old, crawling into bed next to Amy.

"Of course we do, Sherly." Sherlock shot Amy an angry look; she had heard Mycroft calling him that a few days ago and hadn't stopped using it since. Sherlock was sure that she only said it to get a rise out of him.

"What time does it start?" he asked begrudgingly; if it was something that Amy wanted to do, then he would do it. But he probably wasn't going to enjoy it.

"7 at Flannigan's Pub down the street."

"And what time is it now?"

"8:30."

"So we have ten and a half hours to do nothing?"

"Well, it is just a few days before Christmas and I still need to do some holiday shopping for my parents and for the Doctor—"

"Boring," Sherlock declared. "I have a much better idea."

"Oh yeah?" Amy smiled playfully at him.

"Yeah," Sherlock said, a smile playing on his lips as he leaned forward. Their lips touched briefly and Sherlock felt his stomach jumping around in his abdomen. Funny how the body he'd dismissed as transport just a year ago could have such an intense reaction to a simple kiss.

"Sherlock," Amy seemed to absentmindedly let his name escape her lips. She put her tea down on the table behind her without breaking from the kiss for too long. Before Sherlock could react, her hands were all over him. He placed the mug of hot tea in his hand on the mattress a few feet away from him; he hoped it wouldn't fall over but the drink was the last thing on his mind when Amy's fingers wound expertly through his hair. Sherlock could feel fire burning under every part of his skin that she'd laid her hands on. He cupped her cheek in his hand and felt her melt into him, a soft moan escaping from her lips. Even the simplest of touches could cause such an intense reaction in her that he could barely control himself…

"Oh, God," Amy said, pushing forcefully away from Sherlock, her trembling hand covering her mouth.

"Amy…" Sherlock straightened up, concern etched on his features. He held his hand out to Amy, but she unwound herself from the covers and sprinted out of the room.

Sherlock followed her quickly, calling her name anxiously. He heard the bathroom door slam shut and made his way over. He knocked curtly and, when he heard no reply, opened the door. Amy was curled around the porcelain toilet bowl, one hand holding her hair back. She looked up at Sherlock and he was surprised to find that her face had gone as white as a sheet, even whiter than normal.

"You should leave," she croaked out. A tear rushed down her face as she flushed the toilet and stood up, one hand to her mouth and the other to her stomach. She brushed her teeth and wiped her face. Sherlock stood in the doorway the whole time.

"Are you okay?" he finally asked, unsure of what to say. In their year together, she'd never gotten sick, aside from a cold or a case of the sniffles.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," she said. The color was slowly seeping back into her face and she looked healthier. "I think it was just some food I had yesterday or something. It's not a big deal."

Didn't Sherlock have the same dinner as her last night?

"Are you sure?" Sherlock put his hand against her forehead but didn't notice an irregular temperature. She looked okay now, but that was obviously _something_.

"I actually feel loads better. I just won't eat that much today." She shrugged. Upon noticing Sherlock's face lined with concern, she wrapped her arms around him. "This used to happen to me loads when I was at uni. Don't worry about it."

Sherlock nodded and broke away from the hug. Though he went the rest of the day without saying a word, his mind was clicking away, trying to figure out why she was so sick that morning.

0.0.0

"Hey!" A booming voice reached Amy's ears as she stepped inside Flannigan's. Almost immediately as she walked into the warm musty air of the pub, she felt strong arms encompassing her. Strong, drunk arms, she realized as Lestrade pulled away. He had a beer in one hand and the other was in his pocket, a normal stature for him, but his eyes were drooping and his cheeks had turned bright red.

Sherlock glided closer to Amy, obviously trying to signal to Lestrade to keep his hands off. She was taken. Amy just rolled her eyes in mirthful sarcasm and interlocked her fingers with Sherlock's. John was immediately handed a beer by Lestrade and dragged away, getting an earful of football talk.

"He looks less than pleased," Sherlock noted, pointing a finger in the direction of John whose eyes had a sort of glaze to them. He took a few swigs of beer, clearly trying to loosen up to where he could talk with as much vigor as the slurring Lestrade. Amy had a feeling that they may need to carry John out of the pub later.

Sherlock gravitated toward the barstools, away from the large crowd mingling around the middle of the room, and Amy followed. She ordered a water for Sherlock and a ginger ale for herself. She wasn't feeling all that up to drinking tonight; that would make too many people for Sherlock to herd into the flat.

Amy sat on the stool next to Sherlock's reminded of the night that they first met when she was out for drinks with her friends. The thought gave her butterflies but it also made her antsy. That was two full years ago; two years that she hadn't been home. She talked to her mum and dad, sure, and even went out with her friends sometimes, but she was feeling a sudden sense of homesickness for Leadworth and misplacement.

But worrying about her own problems was the last thing she wanted to be doing tonight. The days were growing less and less apart until the date of the headline. With a sudden sense of disgust at her own thoughts, she reached over and put a hand on top of Sherlock's, who was currently surveying the crowd, probably deducing. He glanced over her and gave her a slight smile that she knew he saved only for her and his best friend. He got a text then and reached into his pocket to get it, leaving Amy's hand to sit alone on the bar. She tapped out a little beat with her fingernails.

Sally Donovan was jumping up and down on the dance floor, a huge smile plastered on her face. Just then she caught Amy's eye and smiled brighter. Despite her hate for Sherlock "Freak" Holmes, she had grown to like Amy, which Amy was glad for. On days she followed the boys to a crime scene, it was nice to have at least one other girl there with her. Sally tilted her head back, inviting Amy to come dance with her. Amy looked at Sherlock, still staring at his phone, hopped off the stool, and shimmied her way over to Sally.

0.0.0

_I. O. U. _

_X_

The text still sat on Sherlock's phone, the display screen staring back at him, unwavering. A million theories, calculations, and speculations were running through Sherlock's mind at warp speed, but it was oh so painfully obvious who sent him that text, and it sure as hell wasn't Mrs. Hudson.

Moriarty.

Sherlock said the name out loud, entertained it on his tongue, daring, after all of these months of keeping him in the back of his mind, to speak his name again. Moriarty was back, of course Sherlock knew it was inevitable. But it seemed _wrong _to him, like he should wait for the Christmas season to end.

But, Sherlock guessed, psychopaths didn't care much about Christmas.

Sherlock had obviously thought about how Moriarty would return to the criminal world once again, but he had always thought it might have a little bit more…flair. Mass murder, a new puzzle to solve, but surely not just a text. This seemed too easy, yet to simple to ignore. There had to be something hidden behind the four letters of that text, but _what_ Sherlock couldn't wrap his mind around.

He looked up, noticing for the first time that Amy was no longer at his side. He surveyed the crowd, and found her dancing with Donovan. He decided it would be best to leave her in the care of that woman than have to explain his sudden disappearance. John was working on what had to be his sixth beer, judging by the droop of his eyelids. Sherlock felt a stab of guilt leaving him with Amy, but knew that she would be more than capable of dealing with him. He shot Amy a quick text, telling her that he'd be back at the flat if he needed her, grabbed his coat, and made his exit.

0.0.0

Cab rides were always conducive to thinking. Sherlock found it easy to turn off his hearing and just think. Amy had told him that he liked to think with his hands folded in a prayer-like fashion just underneath his nose, but he had never noticed.

The ride back to the flat was usually short from Flannigan's, so Sherlock was beginning to feel uneasy when it was fifteen minutes later and he was still not home. He looked around at the street signs briefly and noticed that he was two streets away from the pub, and that they'd been going in circles the whole time.

"Excuse me, but do you even know how to get around London?" Sherlock asked curtly, annoyed that he had to give his cab driver direction.

"Of course, sir," the driver said in a thick accent; it sounded as though he'd swallowed some chewing tobacco. "I'll get you home in just a minute, sir."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and sat back, running the text through his mind over and over again. He knew what IOU meant of course; him and Jim had discussed it the day of the verdict. But he hadn't heard from him since. Did the text have something to do with his computer code? Surely it wouldn't be that easy.

The radio came fuzzily to life, pouring waves and incoherent words out into the cab. Sherlock had explicitly told the cabbie no radio.

"Turn this off," Sherlock said, annoyance soaking every word. The cabbie kept driving, now only a few streets from 221B.

A children's radio program rang clear through the car, narrating the story of a Hansel and Gretel. The cabbie, as if being awoken out of a state of paralysis, jerked and hit the power button on the radio, immersing them in silence once more.

"Sorry," he said, pulling the cab up next to Sherlock's flat. Sherlock stepped out of the car and turned around to pay the cabbie, but the tires were already squealing away.

Sherlock whipped around, his coat billowing behind him, and walked briskly up the walk to the door of 221B. He heard a clearing of the throat behind him and turned around out of curiosity to see a large bald man, about the size of a doorframe, standing just a few feet away. He had a slip of paper in his trembling hand and when Sherlock turned around, he held it up and read from it.

"Are you following the breadcrumbs, Sherlock?" he said in a shaking voice. Sherlock cocked his eyebrow, just about to ask what in the world he was saying when a gunshot rang out, clear and strong, and the tree of a man in front of him collapsed to the ground, blood pooling from a hole in his head.

0.0.0

It wasn't two o'clock in the morning until Amy finally stepped inside the familiar flat, John's arm draped around her shoulders as he stumbled across the carpeted front entrance.

"C'you b'lieve tha'?" John asked Amy, his voice slurred to almost to the point of incomprehension. For the past ten minute car ride, John had said little else than the final scores of all the Fifa games from the previous year. She had heard the numbers over and over until they were practically engrained in her mind.

"Alright, John," she said, coming to a halt at the foot of the steps. "Here's what you're going to do. You're going to lift on knee up really high, so high it's going to touch the sky, and then put it down on the step in front of you. You got it?" John shook his head vigorously.

Amy, luckily, had spent too many Saturday night at uni carting her drunken friends around, trying to get them to their beds, or at least a couch if possible. She knew exactly what tone to use and what words to say to get them to do exactly as she wanted them to. It took quite some time, but it was this way that Amy got John up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom, where he hit the pillow and immediately started snoring.

Bone-tired from all the dancing and hauling John around, Amy went out to the living room, ready to crash, but instead found Sherlock on his back, his hands folded in thinking prayer. A rush of annoyance rocketed through her when she saw him just lying there; he hadn't offered once to help get his drunken friend to bed.

"Sherlock," Amy said, sure he wouldn't reply but trying to get his attention anyway. He kept staring up at the ceiling.

"Sherlock," she said again, this time more forcefully. Still no reply.

"Sherlock!" she screamed his name at him like an insult, throwing it out and hoping it landed with a sting.

"Yes," he said, quietly, still preoccupied with whatever thoughts were running through his mind.

"What the hell?" she asked, hand on her hip.

"Excuse me?"

"What the hell, Sherlock?"

This time he looked up, sensing, finally, that Amy was frustrated and angry.

"What is it?"

"You _left_?" Amy asked, her eyes shooting daggers into his.

"I had to think," Sherlock said.

"Great. You had to think. About what, exactly?"

"Things." Sherlock fixed his gaze back on the ceiling and perched his fingertips to his lips again.

"Things. What a wonderful answer." Sherlock didn't reply. Rage was rushing through Amy. "You had left me stranded at the bar with a drunken John and a bar full of drunk policeman. You left without warning, and when I asked you, you just said you had to _think _about _things_?" Still no reply. "I could say anything that I wanted right now and you wouldn't even care or notice would you." Silence. "You're stupid." No comeback. "You're just like your brother." No protest. "I slept with John." Not even a flinch. It may not have been true, but he was still completely unfazed.

"You know what, Sherlock? I'm tired of your moods and I'm tired of you not paying attention to me when you're thinking. Sure, I understand that you have to think a lot for your job and to keep yourself entertained, but if you're not even going to talk about it? What has even got you thinking this much? What is wrong?"

Sherlock stayed perfectly still, like a statue that would only move the second she turned her back. Like a Weeping Angel. Amy shuddered at the thought, and suddenly, overwhelmingly, she missed the Doctor. He was never like this. Sure, he was moody at times, but he always talked and he _always _listened. It had been too long since they'd seen each other.

She grabbed her phone and stalked into her and Sherlock's shared bedroom, hitting the number one speed dial. It was mere seconds between the time she hung up and when she heard the familiar sighs and whistles of the TARDIS landing just outside the window on the street below. She walked through the living room once more, certain that the sound of the TARDIS had evoked some sort of movement from Sherlock, but he sat as stiff as a board. She rolled her eyes and sent out a quick text to Sherlock, mirroring almost exactly what he'd sent her earlier that night.

She ran down the stairs and out the front door. Across the street sat the bluest blue box she'd ever seen, and realized that she wasn't missing Leadworth earlier, but missing the TARDIS. She opened the door and waltzed in without even a glance behind her.


End file.
